Crowdsourcing Digital Public Goods: A Field Experiment on Metadata Contributions

Abstract

This study explores why people choose to contribute metadata, which is data about data. Using a field experiment conducted with more than 3,000 authors of AEA journal articles, our control message reduces the uncertainty about the future value of metadata, whereas those from the treatment conditions additionally make the private or social benefits of metadata salient. Surprisingly, we find that participants in the control condition provide significantly more metadata compared to those in the treatments. This suggests that simply knowing that metadata will have value is sufficient to motivate people to contribute. Our results also highlight the importance of interface design in online field experiments.

Keywords: metadata, digital public goods, field experiment

JEL Classification: C93, H41