Economic Optimization of Quality for Geoinformation product

Data quality of geographic information is of importance to the user and the producer. This paper provides an economic framework in which the relation between the quality of geographic data and its value can be discussed and shows how economically optimal quality can be achieved. A number of steps are necessary to construct such a theory. We show that the concept of the Geoinformation product, which is designed to support a particular decision situation, leads to a method to assess the value of geographic information and to discuss the contribution and the cost of data quality. It is then possible to identify the economically optimal level of data quality for the product. The optimal quality of the Geoinformation product is the quality where the difference between the benefits of using the product and cost of producing it is the highest. In this paper quality has a single dimension and a continuous scale. Further research should consider multiple quality aspects