It is clear that PSI reuse is showing a growing economic importance. Very diverse policies supporting PSI publishing have been identified (Huijboom & Van der Broek, 2011). However most, if not all, of these policies show the expected importance of the economic impact of PSI (OECD, 2006).
In this situation the research question about what factors affect the economic impact of PSI reuse appears more relevant than ever. Even more, which are the drivers for making the real market to reach estimations? Does this impact depend on the type of information? Or would it depend on its legal framework, its basic pricing, or any other characteristics linked to the reusability of the information, or should we consider other factors? How long does it take since the information is released to create economic impact?
This work briefly analyses the theoretical framework in order to address these questions. It will focus in the search of any linkages between the reusability conditions and the real market. A first test with data will be carried out.
Impact of the research question
Therefore the research question proposed is: “Is it possible to get more accurate estimations on the economic impact of PSI reuse? As far as we were able to provide such estimation, some important questions will be automatically answered too:
Are our current PSI publishing policies creating real value for the overall society?
Does the return on these policies justify further investments? To what extent?,
Are the public administrations profiting from these publishing policies? Should we, therefore, include them into the economic impact of the PSI reuse policies?
Should the freedom of information legislation include principles to promote economic reuse? Which ones?
The lack of a model is preventing us from coming up a quantitative analysis, a full estimation of their economic impact. As a result, public sector information publishing policies could be inadequate, since they are not based on the real impacts on the economy but on the satisfaction of some civil rights and accountability principles. If we were able to answer the research question we could design policies which would reduce the time to expand the real market to its potential. We, probably, could also be more effective on the definition of the standards to release information and of course we could focus our efforts on the information which creates the biggest value for the economy.