# Externalities in Knowledge Production: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

## TL;DR

This study uses a randomized field experiment on Wikipedia to investigate whether adding content influences future knowledge growth, finding negligible effects and implications for information seeding strategies.

## Contribution

It provides empirical evidence that adding content to Wikipedia does not significantly affect future knowledge production or externalities.

## Key findings

- Adding content has negligible impact on long-term content growth.
- Externalities in knowledge production are minimal.
- Implications for incentivizing contributions are limited.

## 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.

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/1903.01861