Cross Border Data Sharing: An ASEAN Perspective

With the advancement of data-intensive technologies (AI in particular), cross-border data flows have become an increasingly important topic in the international policy arena and its importance has been recognized by policymakers in Singapore. The future of the global economy is likely to be shaped by the interplay of globalization and localization of data, and therefore, the cross-border data flows call for a systematic investigation.

This project proposes to study the global structure of cross-border data flows, and theoretically and empirically study the international data coalitions (country clubs in which data can freely flow across borders) and the pattern of cross-border data flows. To clarify the nature of international data coalitions, the project will build a game-theoretic model to formally study how different regimes of data governance can arise and interact.

Due to the scarcity of data, there is no model-based quantitative analysis of cross-border data flows. This project plans to confront this data challenge and obtain both direct and indirect measures (proxies) of cross-border data flows. Using the country-level data, the team will then develop and apply a tractable framework to quantitatively examine the correlates and potential determinants of cross-border data flows.