Data access and regime competition: A case study of car data sharing in China

We study the case of a Chinese industrial policy, implemented in Shanghai, that makes it mandatory for car manufacturers to share electro-mechanical performance and real time navigation data from their entire fleet of electric and hybrid vehicles with local and central government authorities. This policy seeks to reduce emissions, assess the performance of New Energy Vehicles (NEVs), prevent fraud in state subsidies and strengthen the competitiveness of Chinese manufacturers of these vehicles. We argue that economies of scope in data aggregation may provide traditional market failure arguments for government intervention and mandatory data pooling. Our paper also illustrates how data access regulation could be used for economic regime competition. The EU and China pursue very similar data policy goals that hinge on economies of scope in data aggregation. However, they follow very different political processes to achieve these goals.