Reciprocity in a Social Network: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment

Publicado en

  • Economics Bulletin

Resumen

  • I use a natural field experiment to test for the presence of reciprocity in the context of a social network. Over the course of a year, I randomly sent birthday greetings to the online friends of a Facebook user. I find that sending a birthday greeting to a Facebook friend causes an increase of 50 percent in the probability that the friend will reciprocate when the birthday of the sender arrives. I also find that the tendency to reciprocate is decreasing in time. The likelihood that a birthday congratulation will be reciprocated increases by almost three times as much when the birthday of the sender is one month away than when it is six months away.

fecha de publicación

  • 2018

Líneas de investigación

  • Experimentos de campo
  • Facebook
  • Reciprocidad
  • Redes

Página inicial

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Volumen

  • 38

Issue

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