Free Services from the Digital Economy: Do We Need to Measure Their Value and How?

Les services gratuits issus de l’économie numérique: faut‑il, et comment, les valoriser ?

Alexandre Bourgeois (), Jacques Blanchet, André Magniez and Ronan Vanoli
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Alexandre Bourgeois: INSEE - Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE)
Jacques Blanchet: INSEE - Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE)
André Magniez: INSEE - Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE)
Ronan Vanoli: INSEE - Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE)

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Abstract: For several years now, the economy has seen a change in consumption habits, driven by the development of digital technology. New products and services and new economic models have emerged, and value chains have changed. This raises many questions for national account ing, including how to take these new forms of free services into account. There are three possible options for trying to assign these services a monetary value: (a) on the basis of the advertising income for those services that are indirectly financed through advertising, (b) direct valuation of the service provided to the users, by assessing their willingness to pay or by using the standard methods for valuing time spent on domestic tasks, and (c) valuing the data generated through the use of these services, which constitute another way of guaranteeing the immediate and longterm profitability of such services. Beyond practical difficulties of their implementation, another issue is that the three options do not all answer the same questions, which ultimately raises the issue of the purpose of the national accounts.

Keywords: brands; advertising; intangible investment; consumption; platform; GDP; data; free; marques; publicité; investissement intangible; plateforme; PIB; consommation; donnée; gratuit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://insee.hal.science/hal-05290592v1
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Published in Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, 2020, 517-518-519, pp.157 - 172. ⟨10.24187/ecostat.2020.517t.2021⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05290592

DOI: 10.24187/ecostat.2020.517t.2021

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