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Reciprocity in a social network: evidence from a natural field experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Luis Carlos Reyes

    (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana)

Abstract

I use a natural field experiment to test for the presence of reciprocity in the context of a social network. Over the course of a year, I randomly sent birthday greetings to the online friends of a Facebook user. I find that sending a birthday greeting to a Facebook friend causes an increase of 50 percent in the probability that the friend will reciprocate when the birthday of the sender arrives. I also find that the tendency to reciprocate is decreasing in time. The likelihood that a birthday congratulation will be reciprocated increases by almost three times as much when the birthday of the sender is one month away than when it is six months away.

Suggested Citation

  • Luis Carlos Reyes, 2018. "Reciprocity in a social network: evidence from a natural field experiment," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(2), pages 672-680.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-18-00316
    as

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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Reciprocity; networks; Facebook; natural field experiments;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty

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