A Crisis of Data? Transparency Practices and Infrastructures of Value in Data Broker Platforms

Abstract

Despite the prevalence of transparency discourses in economic life (e.g., postcrisis socioeconomic reforms), scholarship is just beginning to analyze how these discourses produce new relations between market actors in platform economies. In this article, we argue that in the context of financial markets and the political economy of data, transparency functions as a discursive construction that creates suitable conditions for the manufacture and extraction of data as an asset. First, we examine the role of transparency and opacity in various understandings of the 2007–2008 global financial crisis (GFC). In doing so we link the emergence of FinTech firms to a careful ex post facto reconstruction of the GFC as what we term a “crisis of data.” Then, through problematizing the idea that transparent economic relations necessarily lead to greater accountability, equity, or public good, we argue that transparency is better understood as a relational practice that is continuously and contingently renegotiated. Taking up the example of debt data, we provide case studies of the data brokerage companies BlackRock and dv01 to analyze how transparency constitutes the material infrastructure of debt markets, which facilitates the construction of data assets for profitable circulation in a financialized political economy. We analyze our case studies with a focus on four transparency practices used to infuse data with value—building relationality, increasing granularity, managing directionality, and creating legibility.

在经济生活中（例如, 后危机社会经济改革）, 对透明性的表述已经很普遍。但是, 学术界刚刚开始分析在平台经济中这些表述如何建立市场参与者之间的新型关系。我们认为, 在数据的金融市场和政治经济学中, 透明性表述为数据资产的制造和提取创造了适宜条件。首先, 我们考察了透明性和不透明性在对2007-2008年全球金融危机（GFC）的不同理解中的作用。由此, 我们将金融科技公司的出现与GFC的谨慎重建联系起来, 称之为“数据危机”。然后, 通过质疑透明经济关系必然带来更多的问责、公平性或公共利益的观点, 我们认为, 应当将透明性理解为持续可变的关系性行为。以债务数据为例, 我们研究了数据经纪公司贝莱德（BlackRock）和dv01, 分析了透明性如何构成债务市场的物质基础, 这些基础在金融化政治经济中促进了盈利数据资产的构建。本文的案例分析, 侧重于给数据注入价值的四种透明性行为：构建关系性、加强精细度、管理方向性和建立清晰度。

Pese a la prevalencia de los discursos de transparencia en la vida económica (e.g., reformas socioeconómicas después de la crisis), la academia apenas empieza a analizar cómo estos discursos producen nuevas relaciones entre los actores del mercado en las economías de plataforma. En este artículo sostenemos que en el contexto de los mercados financieros y de la economía política de los datos, la transparencia funciona como una construcción discursiva que crea las condiciones adecuadas para la manufactura y extracción de datos como un activo. Primero, examinamos el papel de la transparencia y la opacidad en diversas interpretaciones de la crisis económica global (GFC) de 2007 a 2008. Al hacerlo, vinculamos la aparición de las empresas Fintech con una cuidadosa reconstrucción ex post facto de la GFC como lo que denominamos una “crisis de datos”. Luego, problematizando la idea de que las relaciones económicas transparentes conducen necesariamente a una mayor responsabilidad, equidad o bien público, argüimos que la transparencia se entiende mejor como práctica relacional que se renegocia continua y contingentemente. A partir del ejemplo de los datos de la deuda, suministramos estudios de caso de las empresas de intermediarios de datos BlackRock y dv01 para analizar cómo la transparencia constituye la infraestructura material de los mercados de deuda, que facilita la construcción de activos de datos para circulación rentable en una economía política financiarizada. Analizamos nuestros estudios de caso focalizados en nuestras prácticas de transparencia usadas para infundir valor a los datos–construyendo relacionalidad, aumentando la granularidad, administrando direccionalidad y creando legibilidad.

Key Words:

• data brokers
• debt
• financial crisis
• platform economy
• transparency

关键词:

• 数据代理
• 债务
• 金融危机
• 平台经济
• 透明性

Palabras clave:

• corredores de datos
• crisis financiera
• deuda
• economía de plataforma
• transparencia

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Michael McCanless for input on an early version of this article, two anonymous reviewers for their helpful critique, and Kendra Strauss for guiding the review process for this article.

Notes

1 See https://capitalmarkets.fanniemae.com/tools-applications/data-dynamics.

2 UPB stands for unpaid principal balance, and HARP refers to the Home Affordable Refinance Program.

3 Although erosion in consumer trust in banks helps drive FinTech adoption (Yang 2021), customer surveys (Principato 2021) and scholarly research (Stewart and Jürjens 2018) show that FinTech firms often overstate this erosion in trust.

4 A related manifestation of post-GFC interest in transparency (not taken up in this article) are blockchains designed around “a public history of transactions” (Nakamoto 2008, 8).

5 Categorizing different state approaches to the “data imperative” is beyond this article’s scope, but it is important to acknowledge that our analysis is based in Western experience (primarily the United States) and that China represents a rather different approach. See Lai’s (2012) overview on financial centers in China and Aho and Duffield’s (2020) discussion of China’s approach to technology and statecraft.

6 Industry groups are Crunchbase-defined sectoral groupings with forty-seven industry groups in all (Crunchbase 2021b).

7 Industries are descriptive keywords for firms listed within Crunchbase with 744 options in all (Crunchbase 2021a).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (Geography and Spatial Sciences Award #1853718).

Notes on contributors

Matthew Zook

MATTHEW ZOOK is a University Research Professor of Digital and Economic Geographies, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40502. E-mail: [email protected]. His research focuses on digital technology, financial geographies, big data, neighborhood change and cities, and the role of finance in urban and regional development.

Ian Spangler

IAN SPANGLER is Assistant Curator of Digital & Participatory Geography at the Leventhal Map & Education Center in the Boston Public Library, and a PhD Candidate in Geography at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40502. E-mail: [email protected]. His research examines the impacts of digital real estate technologies on housing and financialization in the United States.