 International protection of consumer dataYongmin Chen, Xinyu Hua and Keith Maskus Journal of International Economics, 2021, vol. 132, issue C Abstract: We study the international protection of consumer data in a model where data from product sales generate additional revenue to firms but disutility to consumers. When data usage lacks transparency, a firm suffers a commitment problem and overuses consumer data. Greater transparency enables the firm to commit to less data usage, which boosts consumer demand and leads to a higher price but also higher output if the firm operates only in one country. A multinational firm faces more challenges when balancing the trade-offs in data usage across countries that differ in consumer preferences for privacy. Contrary to the result for a single country, more transparency can exacerbate data-usage and output distortions in the global economy, and unilateral data regulation by a country may reduce global welfare. There can be substantial gains from international coordination—though not necessarily uniformity—of data regulations. Keywords: Consumer data; Privacy; Multinational firm; Regulation; Data localization; International coordination (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:inecon:v:132:y:2021:i:c:s0022199621000970 DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2021.103517 Access Statistics for this article Journal of International Economics is currently edited by Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier and RodrÃguez-Clare, Andrés More articles in Journal of International Economics from Elsevier |
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