Public data and corporate employment: Evidence from the launch of Chinese public data platform

We investigate whether public data influences corporate employment. Our identification scheme treats the launch of Chinese public data platforms as a quasi-natural experiment and then conducts a difference-in-differences estimation. The results show that firms have hired more employees after opening public data platforms in the provinces where their offices are located, especially for companies in the mature stage, service industry companies, and companies located in regions with more advanced digital infrastructure and more developed financial system. Mechanism tests show that public data platform openness plays a role in corporate employment through the production scale expansion effect, the business scope expansion effect, and the digital asset investment effect. In addition, examining the two dimensions of data quality and platform construction quality, we find that the quality of public data openness has a significant effect on corporate employment. Our findings provide evidence for Chinese government to promote the openness of public data.