The semicircular flow of the data economy

This paper revisits the traditional ‘circular flow’ of the macroeconomy (Samuelson, 1948) and reworks it to capture the use of big data and artificial intelligence in the economy. The characterisation builds on the multifaceted role of data to conceptualise markets and differentiate them depending on whether data is an output, a means of payment, or an input in knowledge extraction processes. After this, the main differences between the circular flow economy and the data economy are described, identifying the new flows and agents and the circular flow assumptions that do not seem to be as relevant to the workings of the data economy. The result is a ‘semicircular’ flow diagram: unprocessed data flow from individuals, families, and firms to data holders. Only data processed in the form of digital services flows back to families and firms. The new model is used to explore the potential for market failures. Knowledge extraction to generate digital services occurs within a ‘black box’ that displays natural monopoly characteristics. Data holders operate simultaneously in the markets for data generation and knowledge extraction. They generate the amount of knowledge that maximises their profit. This creates data underutilisation and asymmetries between data holders and other agents in the economy such as anti-trust authorities, central banks, scientific communities, consumers, and firms. Public intervention should facilitate additional generation of knowledge by developing additional merit and non-rival uses of data in such a way that knowledge generation maximises the social gain from digitalisation. The semicircular model can incorporate data leakages and knowledge injections activated by data taxation. Data taxes should be paid with data respecting existing legislation, privacy concerns, and preserve the incentives of the data holder to innovate in competitive data generation markets. A centralised data authority, as initially proposed by Martens (2016) and more recently by Scott Morton et al. (2019), would be responsible for knowledge generation and aim to achieve better regulation, standards, and transparency, and maximise common good. Our conclusions are in line with an extensive user-centric approach to data portability (De Hert et al., 2018). This paper contributes to the digital economy discussion by developing a simple theoretical motivation for increased access to data for the public good, which will stimulate further theoretical and empirical exercises and lead to policy actions.JRC.I.1-Monitoring, Indicators & Impact Evaluatio

Emocions i comunicació electrònica textual en català. Un estudi multimetodològic dels recursos emprats per adolescents i adults joves

Actualment una gran part de la comunicació interpersonal té lloc a través de sistemes de comunicació electrònica textual. Una característica clau d’aquests sistemes és que no disposem d’indicacions corporals i vocals que estan presents a la comunicació presencial; aquest fet és especialment rellevant per a la comunicació d’emocions, que en les interaccions presencials transmetem en gran mesura mitjançant senyals no verbals. En un entorn on comuniquem emocions de manera constant mitjançant el canal textual, és essencial conèixer quines estratègies emprem per transmetre els nostres estats emocionals, i també amb quina precisió identifiquem les emocions dels nostres interlocutors. Aquestes estratègies poden variar en funció de diversos factors, com ara el sistema de comunicació electrònica emprat, l’edat i el gènere dels usuaris, o la llengua de comunicació. Amb aquesta recerca volem analitzar l’ús i la identificació dels recursos emocionals a la comunicació electrònica textual en català. Proposem, basant-nos en la recerca existent, dues variables que podrien tenir un efecte en aquests usos: el gènere i l’edat dels usuaris. El tema de la comunicació d’emocions en les interaccions electròniques textuals no és nou, però no disposem de descripcions sistemàtiques basades en dades empíriques dels recursos textuals que s’empren en entorns electrònics concrets i en grups concrets. A més, la immensa majoria de recerques relacionades es basen en dades de la llengua anglesa. Per assolir l’objectiu de la recerca proposem una metodologia mixta, que combina dues tasques experimentals i l’anàlisi d’un corpus de llenguatge espontani. Les tasques experimentals ens han de permetre conèixer quins recursos s’utilitzen per expressar emocions a la comunicació electrònica textual en català i fins a quin punt aquests recursos faciliten la identificació d’aquestes emocions. L’anàlisi de corpus ens permetrà observar l’ús d’aquests recursos en un entorn natural de producció de llenguatge. El tractament de les dades té components quantitatius i qualitatius. Els resultats han de permetre obtenir una descripció dels recursos més habituals per expressar emocions a la comunicació electrònica textual en llengua catalana, així com determinar la influència del gènere i l’edat en l’ús d’aquests recursos. Alhora, esperem que les troballes puguin servir com a fonament per a altres recerques, sobretot en l’àmbit aplicat de l’anàlisi de sentiments.A large proportion of interpersonal communication currently takes place through text-based electronic communication systems. A key feature of these systems is that they lack the vocal and bodily cues found in face-to-face communication. This is particularly relevant when it comes to express emotions, which, in face-to-face settings, are transmitted to a large extent through nonverbal signals. In a textual channel we still need to communicate our emotions, so it becomes essential to know which strategies are used to transmit our emotional states, and also whether we are able to precisely identify our interactants’ emotions. Those strategies may vary according to several factors, such as the communication system used, users’ age and gender, or the language of communication. The aim of this research is to analyse the use and identification of the emotional strategies in text- based electronic communication in Catalan. On the basis of previous research, we propose two variables that may have an effect on those uses: gender and age. The topic of emotion communication in text-based electronic interactions is not new, but we lack systematic descriptions based on empirical data of the textual strategies used in specific electronic settings and by specific groups. Moreover, the vast majority of research is based on English language data. In order to achieve the research goals we set out a mixed methodology, which combines two experimental tasks and a spontaneous language corpus analysis. The experimental tasks should allow us to gather knowledge about the strategies used to express emotions in Catalan language through text-based electronic communication, and to which extent such strategies facilitate the identification of emotions. The corpus analysis will enable the observation of those strategies used in a natural language setting. The data are processed with both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The results should allow us to obtain a description of the most frequent strategies to express emotions in text-based electronic communication in Catalan, as well as to determine the influence of gender and age in the use of such strategies. At the same time, we hope that our findings will be useful as a foundation for further research, especially in the applied research field of sentiment analysis