Effect of Digital Data on Economic Growth : A Policy Analysis based on a Dynamic General Equilibrium Model incorporating Digital Data

This study analyzes the effects on macroeconomic growth of the transfer to firms digital data such as personal identification information and purchase history that are generated as a byproduct of household consumption. Specifically, we analyzed the effects of improvements in the quality of digital data, like advances in statistical analysis methods that create value from data and in the big data analysis used by firms in their marketing. We first expressed digital data generation as a by-product of consumption in a model, then constructed a dynamic general equilibrium (DGE) model incorporating digital data into firms’ production function, and conducted a dynamic simulation analysis. The results showed that improving the quality of digital data positively affects output and leads to economic growth.