Abstract: Public data openness serves as a crucial mechanism for breaking down barriers in data element circulation and accelerating the integration between the digital economy and the real economy. This study utilizes the quasi-natural experiment of China's local governments launching public data platforms to empirically examine the impact of public data openness on the scale of corporate fixed-asset investment. The results show that public data openness significantly expands corporate fixed-asset investment scale, with an average effect of 13.15 basis points. Mechanism analysis reveals that alleviating financial frictions and reinforcing capital's profit-seeking behavior are the underlying pathways through which public data openness enhances fixed-asset investment. Furthermore, the study finds that the investment-promoting effect strengthens with higher public data utilization rates, greater enterprise engagement with open data elements, and improved quality of public data openness. This research demonstrates the positive effect of public data openness on corporate fixed-asset investment, provides empirical evidence on how data elements empower real economic development, and offers theoretical support for advancing public data openness to deepen digital-real economy integration.

Key words: data elements, public data openness, digital economy, real economy, corporate investment