Externalities in knowledge production: Evidence from a randomized field experiment

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Hinnosaar, Marit, Hinnosaar, Toomas, Kummer, Michael and Slivko, Olga (2022) Externalities in knowledge production: Evidence from a randomized field experiment. Experimental Economics, 25 (2). pp. 706-733. ISSN 1386-4157

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Abstract

Are there positive or negative externalities in knowledge production? We analyze whether current contributions to knowledge production increase or decrease the future growth of knowledge. To assess this, we use a randomized field experiment that added content to some pages in Wikipedia while leaving similar pages unchanged. We compare subsequent content growth over the next 4 years between the treatment and control groups. Our estimates allow us to rule out effects on 4-year growth of content length larger than twelve percent. We can also rule out effects on 4-year growth of content quality larger than four points, which is less than one-fifth of the size of the treatment itself. The treatment increased editing activity in the first 2 years, but most of these edits only modified the text added by the treatment. Our results have implications for information seeding and incentivizing contributions. They imply that additional content may inspire future contributions in the short- and medium-term but do not generate large externalities in the long term.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	field experiment,knowledge accumulation,public goods provision,user-generated content,wikipedia,economics, econometrics and finance (miscellaneous) ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2000/2001
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Applied Econometrics And Finance Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Industrial Economics Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Competition Policy
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	19 Jun 2020 00:06
Last Modified:	31 May 2025 23:58
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/75667
DOI:	10.1007/s10683-021-09730-x

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