T he P rivate I mpact of P ublic D ata: L andsat S atellite M aps I ncreased G old D iscoveries and E ncouraged E ntry

Abhishek Nagaraj ()
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Abhishek Nagaraj: Berkeley-Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720

Management Science, 2022, vol. 68, issue 1, 564-582

Abstract: How does public data shape the relative performance of incumbents and entrants in the private sector? Using a simple theoretical framework, I argue that public data reduces investment uncertainty, facilitates the discovery of new market opportunities, and increases the relative market share of new entrants relative to incumbents. I shed light on these predictions by estimating the impact of public data from Landsat, a U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration satellite mapping program, on the discovery rates of new deposits by incumbents (seniors) and entrants (juniors) in the gold exploration industry. I exploit idiosyncratic timing variation and cloud cover in Landsat coverage across regions to identify the causal effect of public data on the patterns of gold discovery. I find that Landsat data nearly doubled the rate of significant gold discoveries after a region was mapped and increased the market share of new entrants from about 10% to 25%. Public data seem to play an important, yet relatively underexplored, role in driving performance differences across firms.

Keywords: economics: microeconomic behavior; industries: mining-metals; public information (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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