Group Size and Incentives to Contribute: A Natural Experiment at Chinese Wikipedia
17 Pages
Posted: 15 Oct 2007
Last revised: 1 Sep 2014
Chinese University of Hong Kong; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Center for Digital Business
Harvard University - Harvard Business School
Date Written: March 18, 2010
Abstract
The literature on the private provision of public goods suggests an inverse relationship between incentives to contribute and group size. We find, however, that after an exogenous reduction of group size at Chinese Wikipedia, the nonblocked contributors decrease their contributions by 42.8% on average. We attribute the cause to social effects: Contributors receive social benefits that increase with both the amount of their contributions and group size, and the shrinking group size weakens these social benefits. Consistent with our explanation, we find that the more contributors value social benefits, the more they reduce their contributions after the block.
Keywords: incentives to contribute, group size, public goods, social effects, Wikipedia, Internet censorship
JEL Classification: D85, H44, L14, L31, L86
Suggested Citation:
Suggested Citation
Zhang, Xiaoquan (Michael) and Zhu, Feng, Group Size and Incentives to Contribute: A Natural Experiment at Chinese Wikipedia (March 18, 2010). American Economic Review, Forthcoming; NET Institute Working Paper No. 07-22. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1021450
