We document a causal impact of online user-generated information on real-world economic outcomes. In particular, we conduct a randomized field experiment to test whether additional content on Wikipedia pages about cities affects tourists' choices of overnight visits. Our treatment of adding information to Wikipedia increases overnight stays in treated cities compared to nontreated cities. The impact is largely driven by improvements to shorter and relatively incomplete pages on Wikipedia. Our findings highlight the value of digital public goods for informing individual choices.

中文翻译：

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维基百科很重要

我们记录了在线用户生成的信息对现实世界经济结果的因果影响。特别是，我们进行了一项随机实地实验，以测试维基百科页面上有关城市的附加内容是否会影响游客过夜访问的选择。与未处理的城市相比，我们向维基百科添加信息的处理增加了处理城市的过夜停留时间。这种影响很大程度上是由于维基百科上较短且相对不完整的页面的改进所致。我们的研究结果强调了数字公共产品在为个人选择提供信息方面的价值。