Online platform , Wikipedia , public goods , unemployment , user generated content
Abstract:
In this paper, we address the impact of surging unemployment on online public good provision.
Specifically, we ask how drastically increased unemployment affects voluntary contributions of content
to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. We put together a monthly country-level data set, which combines
country specific economic outcomes with data on contributions to the online encyclopedia. As a source
of exogenous variation in the economic state we use the fact that European countries were affected by
the financial crisis in the US in September 2008 with different intensity. For European countries, we find
that the economic downturn is associated with more viewership, which channels higher participation
of volunteers in Wikipedia expressed in editing activity and content growth. We provide evidence for
increased information search online or online learning as a potential channel of the change in public
goods provision, which is a potentially important side effect of the economic downturn.
Das Dokument wird vom Publikationsserver der Universitätsbibliothek Mannheim bereitgestellt.
Search Authors in