Microdata for Social Sciences and Policy Evaluation as a Public Good

Ugo Trivellato ()
Additional contact information
Ugo Trivellato: University of Padova

No 11092, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The balance between the right to privacy and the right to freedom of information is altered when scientific research comes into play, because of its inherent needs and societal function. This paper argues that, for research purposes, microdata should be characterised as a public good. The evolution of the rules and practices in the European Union (EU) for protecting confidentiality while allowing access to microdata for research purposes is reviewed. Two key directions are identified for further improvement: remote access to confidential data and the enlargement of the notion of 'European statistics' to include microdata produced for evaluating interventions (co)financed by the EU.

Keywords: microdata access; privacy and data protection; counterfactual impact evaluation; intelligent openness; public policies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C81 D04 H41 I38 J08 L5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2017-10
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published - published in: Crato N. and P. Paruolo (eds,), Data-driven Policy Impact Evaluation: How Microdata is Transforming Policy Design, Springer, 2019, 27- 45

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp11092.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11092

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().