Abstract: [Purpose/Significance] Against the backdrop of the data economy's development, this study aims to construct a theoretical explain of the local government's role in establishing data exchanges and distill the experiences in cultivating data elements market with Chinese characteristics.[Design/Methodology] Based on policy text analysis and field research interviews, this study examines local government strategies for guiding data exchange construction and employs the Qualitative Comparative Analysis（QCA）to identify which factors and their combinations influence the selection of government-guided data exchange construction models. [Findings/Conclusion] Based on "institutional construction" and "financial support", local governments generally require data exchanges serve as local "leaders" to drive the development of local data trading industries. However, regions with weaker fiscal capacity and less developed data industries tend to guide local exchanges to adopt a "full industrial chain operation" business model, while preferring to strengthen state-owned enterprises' control over exchanges. In contrast, developed regions tend to guide local exchanges to adopt a "transaction matching + data management" business model and tend to involve private enterprises to participate in the shareholding of exchanges. [Originality/Value] This study identifies two paths and associated constraining factors for government-guided data exchange construction, offering insights to inform national relevant strategic measure formulation for the development of the data trading industry.

Keywords: Data trading, Data exchange, Local government, Data elements