This paper provides a systematic and critical review of the economics literature on data as an economic good and draws lessons for data governance. We conclude that focusing on data as an economic good in governance efforts is hardwired to only result in more data production and cannot deliver other societal goals contrary to what is often claimed in the literature and policy. Data governance is often a red herring which distracts from other digital problems. The governance of digital society cannot rely exclusively on data-centric economic models. We review the literatures and the underlying empirical and political claims concerning data commons. While commons thinking is useful to frame digital problems in terms of ecologies, it has important limitations. We propose a political-ecological approach to governing the digital society, defined by ecological thinking about governance problems and the awareness of the political nature of framing the problems and mapping their ecological makeup.

翻译：本文对关于数据作为经济商品的经济学文献进行了系统且批判性的评述，并从中提炼出数据治理的启示。我们得出结论：在治理努力中将数据视为经济商品的聚焦方式，必然只会导致数据产量的增加，而无法实现其他社会目标——这与文献和政策中常见的论断相悖。数据治理往往是转移视线的干扰项，使人们忽视其他数字问题。数字社会的治理不能仅依赖以数据为中心的经济模型。我们审视了关于数据公共资源的文献及其背后的经验与政治主张。尽管公共资源思维有助于从生态角度界定数字问题，但它存在重要局限性。我们提出一种治理数字社会的政治生态学方法，其核心理念包括：以生态学视角审视治理问题，并清醒认识到问题界定及其生态构成图谱背后蕴含的政治性。