Wikipedia Matters

Marit Hinnosaar, Toomas Hinnosaar, Michael Kummer and Olga Slivko

No 508, Carlo Alberto Notebooks from Collegio Carlo Alberto

Abstract: We document a causal impact of online user-generated information on real-world economic outcomes. In particular, we conduct a randomized field experiment to test whether additional content on Wikipedia pages about cities affects tourists’ choices of overnight visits. Our treatment of adding information to Wikipedia increases overnight visits by 9% during the tourist season. The impact comes mostly from improving the shorter and incomplete pages on Wikipedia. These findings highlight the value of content in digital public goods for informing individual choices.

Keywords: field experiment; user-generated content; Wikipedia; tourism industry. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 H41 L17 L82 L83 L86 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: pages 27
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cca:wpaper:508

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