Is it real or illusory? An empirical examination of the impact of open government data on innovation capability in the case of China

The values and effects of open government data (OGD) initiative are a hot issue in academic research and practical exploration, which is of great significance to promote the continuous implementation and development of OGD. Previous studies have discussed the various categories of potential values and impacts of OGD, however, the empirical evidence is limited. Hence, this study focuses on the innovation effect of OGD initiatives and employs the quasi-nature experiment method to explore and verify the causal relationship between the implementation of OGD and the innovation capability of cities in China. This research constructs panel data of cities in China from the years 2012–2020, and adopts the multi-period difference-in- difference analysis method to conduct empirical study. The results prove that the implementation of OGD initiatives has positive impact on innovation capability, and the parallel trend test and robustness test results also support this conclusion. In addition, this study also concludes that the impact of OGD initiatives on innovation capability is dynamic and continuous. Finally, the heterogeneity analysis results indicate that the effect of OGD initiatives on innovation capability varies among cities in different geographical locations and administrative levels. This manuscript enriches studies on the values and impacts of OGD initiatives and also provides references for OGD implementation.