Bandiera, Oriana 
ORCID: 0009-0002-6817-793X and Rasul, Imran
(2002)
Social networks and technology adoption in Northern Mozambique.
.
Centre for Economic Policy Research (Great Britain), London, UK.
(Submitted)
Abstract
Despite their potentially strong impact on poverty, agricultural innovations are often adopted slowly. Using a unique household dataset on sunflower adoption in Mozambique, we analyse whether and how individual adoption decisions depend upon the choices of others in the same social networks. Since farmers anticipate that they will share information with others, we expect farmers to be more likely to adopt when they know many other adopters. Dynamic considerations, however, suggest that farmers who know many adopters might strategically delay adoption to free-ride on the information gathered by others. We present empirical evidence that shows that the relationship between the probability of adoption and the number of known adopters is shaped as an inverse-U. In line with information sharing, the network effect is stronger for farmers who report discussing agriculture with others. The data contains information that is needed to ameliorate the identification issues that commonly arise in this context. In particular, social networks are precisely identified, and in addition we can control for village hetereogeneity and for endogenous group formation.
| Item Type: | Monograph (Discussion Paper) |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | http://www.cepr.org |
| Additional Information: | © 2002 Oriana Bandiera and Imran Rasul |
| Divisions: | Economics STICERD |
| Subjects: | T Technology > T Technology (General) H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory |
| JEL classification: | O - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O12 - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development O - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth > O3 - Technological Change; Research and Development > O31 - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives |
| Date Deposited: | 07 May 2008 15:33 |
| Last Modified: | 11 Dec 2024 18:33 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/4717 |
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