Externalities in Knowledge Production: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

Marit Hinnosaar, Toomas Hinnosaar, Michael Kummer and Olga Slivko

No 13575, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: Do contributions to online content platforms induce a feedback loop of ever more user-generated content or will they discourage future contributions? To assess this, we use a randomized field experiment which added content to some pages in Wikipedia while leaving similar pages unchanged. We find that adding content has a negligible impact on the subsequent long-run growth of content. Our results have implications for information seeding and incentivizing contributions, implying that additional content does not generate sizable externalities, neither by inspiring nor by discouraging future contributions.

Keywords: User-generated content; Knowledge accumulation; Wikipedia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 L17 L86 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-ict, nep-pay and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Externalities in knowledge production: evidence from a randomized field experiment (2022)
Working Paper: Externalities in Knowledge Production: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment (2019)
Working Paper: Externalities in knowledge production: Evidence from a randomized field experiment (2019)
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