Externalities in Knowledge Production: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment
Abstract
Are there positive or negative externalities in knowledge production? Do current contributions to knowledge production increase or decrease the future growth of knowledge? We use a randomized field experiment, which added relevant content to some pages in Wikipedia while leaving similar pages unchanged. We find that the addition of 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 by inspiring nor discouraging future contributions.
- Publication:
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arXiv e-prints
- Pub Date:
- March 2019
- DOI:
- 10.48550/arXiv.1903.01861
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1903.01861
- Bibcode:
- 2019arXiv190301861H
- Keywords:
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- Economics - General Economics;
- Computer Science - Computers and Society;
- Computer Science - Computer Science and Game Theory