Data as a Networked Asset
Prof. Bo Bian
Assistant Professor of Finance
Sauder School of Business,
The University of British Columbia
Date: 16 May 2025 (Friday)
Time: 10:30-12:00
Venue: E22-G015
Host: Prof. Jing Xie, Associate Professor in Finance
Abstract
Data is non-rival: a firm’s data can be used simultaneously by others, and information about its customers benefits other firms even across industries. How is data being shared? Using granular information on mobile app usage, functionalities, and connections with data analytics platforms, we uncover a network of inter-firm data flows. Data sharing generates comovements in operational, financial, and stock-market performances among data-connected firms, beyond what traditional economic linkages can explain, and induces strategic complementarity in firms’ product-design choices. Apple’s App Tracking Transparency policy, which restricts inter-firm data flows, weakens these patterns, providing causal evidence of the role of data sharing. To explain these findings, we develop a dynamic network model of data economy, where firm growth becomes interconnected through data sharing. The model introduces a network-augmented Gordon growth formula to value data-generated cash flows, capturing direct and indirect network externalities over multiple time horizons. Our metrics of valuation centrality identify systemically important firms that disproportionately influence the data economy due to their pivotal positions within the data-sharing network.
Speaker
Prof. Bo Bian is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the UBC Sauder School of Business. She holds a PhD in Finance from London Business School. Her research focuses on empirical corporate finance, with particular interest in how legal and regulatory institutions shape productivity, innovation, entrepreneurship, and the digital economy. Her work is regularly featured at top academic conferences and journals, and has been presented to policymakers at institutions such as the Bank of Canada, the CFPB, the FTC, the Federal Reserve, and the Department of Health.
All are welcome!
