IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/13575.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Externalities in Knowledge Production: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

Author

Listed:
  • Hinnosaar, Marit
  • Hinnosaar, Toomas
  • Kummer, Michael
  • Slivko, Olga

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Hinnosaar, Marit & Hinnosaar, Toomas & Kummer, Michael & Slivko, Olga, 2019. "Externalities in Knowledge Production: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment," CEPR Discussion Papers 13575, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13575
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP13575
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gerald C. Kane & Sam Ransbotham, 2016. "Content as Community Regulator: The Recursive Relationship Between Consumption and Contribution in Open Collaboration Communities," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(5), pages 1258-1274, October.
    2. Jacob M. Markman & Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain & Steven G. Rivkin, 2003. "Does peer ability affect student achievement?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(5), pages 527-544.
    3. Kai Zhu & Dylan Walker & Lev Muchnik, 2020. "Content Growth and Attention Contagion in Information Networks: Addressing Information Poverty on Wikipedia," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(2), pages 491-509, June.
    4. Ian Ayres & Sophie Raseman & Alice Shih, 2013. "Evidence from Two Large Field Experiments that Peer Comparison Feedback Can Reduce Residential Energy Usage," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 29(5), pages 992-1022, October.
    5. Damon Jones & David Molitor & Julian Reif, 2019. "What do Workplace Wellness Programs do? Evidence from the Illinois Workplace Wellness Study," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(4), pages 1747-1791.
    6. Yan Chen & F. Maxwell Harper & Joseph Konstan & Sherry Xin Li, 2010. "Social Comparisons and Contributions to Online Communities: A Field Experiment on MovieLens," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1358-1398, September.
    7. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Wright, Randall, 1989. "On Money as a Medium of Exchange," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 927-954, August.
    8. Slivko, Olga, 2018. ""Brain gain" on Wikipedia: Immigrants return knowledge home," ZEW Discussion Papers 18-008, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    9. Giacomo De Giorgi & Michele Pellizzari & Silvia Redaelli, 2010. "Identification of Social Interactions through Partially Overlapping Peer Groups," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 241-275, April.
    10. Shane Greenstein & Feng Zhu, 2012. "Is Wikipedia Biased?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 343-348, May.
    11. Esther Duflo & Emmanuel Saez, 2003. "The Role of Information and Social Interactions in Retirement Plan Decisions: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 815-842.
    12. Lacetera, Nicola & Macis, Mario, 2010. "Social image concerns and prosocial behavior: Field evidence from a nonlinear incentive scheme," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 225-237, November.
    13. Kummer, Michael & Slivko, Olga & Zhang, Michael, 2015. "Economic downturn and volunteering: Do economic crises affect content generation on Wikipedia?," ZEW Discussion Papers 15-078, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    14. Sam Ransbotham & Gerald C. Kane & Nicholas H. Lurie, 2012. "Network Characteristics and the Value of Collaborative User-Generated Content," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(3), pages 387-405, May.
    15. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1993. "Innovation and Growth in the Global Economy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262570971, April.
    16. Duflo, Esther & Saez, Emmanuel, 2002. "Participation and investment decisions in a retirement plan: the influence of colleagues' choices," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 121-148, July.
    17. Noah J. Goldstein & Robert B. Cialdini & Vladas Griskevicius, 2008. "A Room with a Viewpoint: Using Social Norms to Motivate Environmental Conservation in Hotels," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 35(3), pages 472-482, March.
    18. Yacheng Sun & Xiaojing Dong & Shelby McIntyre, 2017. "Motivation of User-Generated Content: Social Connectedness Moderates the Effects of Monetary Rewards," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(3), pages 329-337, May.
    19. Kummer, Michael, 2014. "Spillovers in networks of user generated content: Pseudo-experimental evidence on Wikipedia," ZEW Discussion Papers 14-132, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    20. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5ulf84sluc9vlb5mrjr32mfetg is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Yann Algan & Yochai Benkler & Mayo Fuster Morell & Jérôme Hergueux, 2013. "Cooperation in Peer-Production Economy: Experimental Evidence from Wikipedia," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03460797, HAL.
    22. Charles F. Manski, 1993. "Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(3), pages 531-542.
    23. Jones, Charles I, 1995. "R&D-Based Models of Economic Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(4), pages 759-784, August.
    24. Sonali K. Shah, 2006. "Motivation, Governance, and the Viability of Hybrid Forms in Open Source Software Development," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(7), pages 1000-1014, July.
    25. Hinnosaar, Marit, 2019. "Gender inequality in new media: Evidence from Wikipedia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 262-276.
    26. Jana Gallus, 2017. "Fostering Public Good Contributions with Symbolic Awards: A Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment at Wikipedia," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(12), pages 3999-4015, December.
    27. Chaim Fershtman & Neil Gandal, 2011. "Direct and indirect knowledge spillovers: the “social network” of open‐source projects," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 42(1), pages 70-91, March.
    28. Xiaoquan (Michael) Zhang & Feng Zhu, 2011. "Group Size and Incentives to Contribute: A Natural Experiment at Chinese Wikipedia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1601-1615, June.
    29. Aleksi Aaltonen & Stephan Seiler, 2016. "Cumulative Growth in User-Generated Content Production: Evidence from Wikipedia," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(7), pages 2054-2069, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Abhishek Nagaraj, 2021. "Information Seeding and Knowledge Production in Online Communities: Evidence from OpenStreetMap," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(8), pages 4908-4934, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bonan, Jacopo & Battiston, Pietro & Bleck, Jaimie & LeMay-Boucher, Philippe & Pareglio, Stefano & Sarr, Bassirou & Tavoni, Massimo, 2021. "Social interaction and technology adoption: Experimental evidence from improved cookstoves in Mali," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    2. Charles Ayoubi & Boris Thurm, 2023. "Knowledge diffusion and morality: Why do we freely share valuable information with Strangers?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 75-99, January.
    3. Kai Zhu & Dylan Walker & Lev Muchnik, 2020. "Content Growth and Attention Contagion in Information Networks: Addressing Information Poverty on Wikipedia," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(2), pages 491-509, June.
    4. Kexin Zhao & Bin Zhang & Xue Bai, 2018. "Estimating Contextual Motivating Factors in Virtual Interorganizational Communities of Practice: Peer Effects and Organizational Influences," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 29(4), pages 910-927, December.
    5. Hinnosaar, Marit, 2019. "Gender inequality in new media: Evidence from Wikipedia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 262-276.
    6. Kummer, Michael E. & Saam, Marianne & Halatchliyski, Iassen & Giorgidze, George, 2016. "Centrality and content creation in networks - The case of economic topics on German wikipedia," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 36-52.
    7. Yann Bramoullé & Habiba Djebbari & Bernard Fortin, 2020. "Peer Effects in Networks: A Survey," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 603-629, August.
    8. Bet Caeyers, 2014. "Peer effects in development programme awareness of vulnerable groups in rural Tanzania," CSAE Working Paper Series 2014-11, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    9. James Farrell, 2019. "Peer Effects Among Teachers: A Study of Retirement Investments," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 486-497, September.
    10. Mugerman, Yevgeny & Sade, Orly & Shayo, Moses, 2014. "Long term savings decisions: Financial reform, peer effects and ethnicity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 235-253.
    11. Slivko, Olga, 2014. "Peer effects in collaborative content generation: The evidence from German Wikipedia," ZEW Discussion Papers 14-128, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    12. Leonardo Bursztyn & Florian Ederer & Bruno Ferman & Noam Yuchtman, 2012. "Understanding Peer Effects in Financial Decisions: Evidence from a Field Experiment," NBER Working Papers 18241, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Anna Kerkhof & Johannes Münster, 2021. "Detecting Coverage Bias in User-Generated Content," CESifo Working Paper Series 8844, CESifo.
    14. Kast, Felipe & Meier, Stephan & Pomeranz, Dina, 2018. "Saving more in groups: Field experimental evidence from Chile," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 275-294.
    15. Chih‐Sheng Hsieh & Xu Lin, 2021. "Social interactions and social preferences in social networks," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(2), pages 165-189, March.
    16. Zhao, Chuanmin & Qu, Xi, 2021. "Peer effects in pension decision-making: evidence from China's new rural pension scheme," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    17. Abhishek Nagaraj, 2021. "Information Seeding and Knowledge Production in Online Communities: Evidence from OpenStreetMap," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(8), pages 4908-4934, August.
    18. John A. List & James J. Murphy & Michael K. Price & Alexander G. James, 2019. "Do Appeals to Donor Benefits Raise More Money than Appeals to Recipient Benefits? Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment with Pick.Click.Give," NBER Working Papers 26559, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Dur, Robert & Fleming, Dimitry & van Garderen, Marten & van Lent, Max, 2021. "A social norm nudge to save more: A field experiment at a retail bank," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    20. Leonardo Bursztyn & Florian Ederer & Bruno Ferman & Noam Yuchtman, 2014. "Understanding Mechanisms Underlying Peer Effects: Evidence From a Field Experiment on Financial Decisions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(4), pages 1273-1301, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    User-generated content; Knowledge accumulation; Wikipedia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L17 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Open Source Products and Markets
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13575. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.