Exploring The Determinants Of Global 'Social Production' Of Information And Knowledge: Insights From SETI@home

Commons-based peer production is an activity that is emerging as a distinct mode of resource allocation and production of information, knowledge and culture ('Social production' for short), potentially heralding a new stage in the development of information/knowledge-based economies. This paper presents a cross-country analysis of factors determining the information and knowledge output of the paradigmatic social production project, i.e. SETI@home. The main hypothesis explored is that the level of average subjective well-being in a country is a motivational proxy variable that can help explain the cross-country variation in SETI@home output levels.