Open data in Luxembourg, strategy and best practices (2012) chapter 4

Estimating the impact of open data raises several problems: it must of course distinguish the economic consequences of political or societal impacts, less easily quantified. Most analysts recognize the economic leverage of open data, such as Gartner, "Gartner Says Organizations Big Data Makes Smarter, But Makes Them Richer Open Data" but the level of this impacts gives many different estimations. The question of the economic impact could in principle be limited to a balance of costs and revenues. But even for that, the perspective to adopt, the method of calculation, and the inputs to take into account are not always shared. Because of their anteriority, PSI provide some enlightening elements of comparison with sufficient experience in the long term, since the issues are discussed in quite similar terms. It is even an essential aspect, which has a decisive role in the launch of the European regulation of PSI from the finding of the PIRA study in 2000, with investments that are two times higher than the European Union in PSI, the United States generate revenue forty times higher.

4.1 Analysis framework

The general model used here is taken from an Australian report proposing a paradigm to calculate the benefit, taking into account the point of view of data producers and data consumers. This ensures a more sustainable economic model, it is necessary not to limit the equation to producer: the degree of reuse is directly related to the cost of accessing to data. There could be a seemingly balanced model for producers, but if but if it is not suitable for consumers, it will eventually fail. Morevoer this model includes savings by different stakeholders under profits, choice shared by most of the analyses on the profits of open data.

${\frac {Benefits}{Costs}}={\frac {Agencysavings+userssavings+returnoninvestment}{Agencycosts+userscosts}}$

The case of PSI shows also the great difficulty to find an analytical framework accepted by enough stakeholders to debate under homogeneous conditions: “How are the costs determined? Do you include the lights? The air conditioning? The price, then, is always a political decision—and arbitrary. According to economists, there is no way to price information in an objective manner.”

Cost	Definition	stakeholder involved	Consequences of open data
"Collection/creation"		Provider	Weak
“Data assurance (quality, privacy…)”		Provider	Both. +: crowdsourcing. -: loss of incomes
"Curation"		Provider	Weak
"Dissemination"		Provider	Increased costs
"Transaction"	Part of dissemination costs	Provider/user	Cost reduction
"Permission"		User	cost reduction
"Access"		User	Cost reduction
"Use"		User	Cost reduction
"Re-use"		User	Cost reduction

4.4. Elements on real costs

Platform	Country	Scope	Scale	Cost assessment
data.gov	USA	General	National	Around $10 million / year
data.gov.uk	UK	General	National	2010-2011 : £1,2 million ; 2011-2012 : £2 million per year
data.gouv.fr	France	General	National	€5 million / year
data.nantes.fr	France	General	Local	€100,000 (cost of the Portal)
portalu.de	Germany	Environment	National	€750,000 / year