An Example of Negative Wage Elasticity for YouTube Content Creators

Andrei Barbos and Joshua Kaisen

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2022, vol. 203, issue C, 382-400

Abstract: The neoclassical model of labor supply implies a positive wage elasticity absent significant income effects. This paper documents an instance of negative wage elasticity in video production by YouTube content creators. We exploit viral videos as an exogenous source of significant wage increases and investigate the productivity dynamics around the time a channel's video went viral, against a control group of channels that had no viral videos. Our analysis shows a productivity decline during the week after a video goes viral, despite the higher wages, followed by a gradual return towards pre-treatment productivity. This average productivity decline is driven by the channels with the lower numbers of subscribers. Channels in the upper quartile of the subscriber size distribution increase productivity after their video goes viral. We also show that average productivity responds positively to smaller increases in wages. These findings are consistent with an alternative model of labor supply, where a fraction of the content creators exhibit income targeting.

Keywords: Income Targeting; Negative Wage Elasticity; YouTube (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D01 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268122003304
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:203:y:2022:i:c:p:382-400

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2022.09.012

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D.

More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().