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Peer effects in collaborative content generation: The evidence from German Wikipedia

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  • Slivko, Olga

Abstract

On Wikipedia, the largest online encyclopedia, editors who contribute to the same articles and exchange comments on articles' talk pages work in collaborative manner engaging in communication about their work. Thus they can be considered as peers who are likely to influence each other. In this article, I examine whether the activity of these peers, measured by the average amount of peer contributions or by the number of peers, yields spillovers to the amount of individual contributions. The partially overlapping group structure allows to identify peer effects and to use the number of the indirect peers as an instrument for the activity and the number of direct peers. The results show that, while controlling for observable editor and peer characteristics, an increase in the monthly average peer contribution by 1 per cent increases the amount of individual monthly contributions to Wikipedia (among individuals that contribute to Wikipedia every month) by about 0.44 per cent. Similarly, spillovers coming from the number of peers yield a positive effect of 0.17 per cent per article to 0.05 per cent for overall monthly contributions to Wikipedia.

Suggested Citation

  • Slivko, Olga, 2015. "Peer effects in collaborative content generation: The evidence from German Wikipedia," ZEW Discussion Papers 14-128 [rev.], ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:14128r
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    Cited by:

    1. Slivko, Olga, 2018. ""Brain gain" on Wikipedia: Immigrants return knowledge home," ZEW Discussion Papers 18-008, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    2. Sarbu Miruna, 2017. "Does Social Media Increase Labour Productivity?," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 237(2), pages 81-113, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Peer Effects; Network of Editors; Direct and Indirect Peers; User-generated Content; Wikipedia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation
    • J46 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Informal Labor Market

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