The role of social networks in the adoption of competing new technologies in Ghana
利用加纳农户数据，研究社会网络中邻居对竞争性大豆品种采纳决策的影响，发现网络内采纳决策趋于一致，且超过一定阈值后跨品种效应减弱。
Abstract We use a detailed dataset to examine the impact of social networks, conditional on contextual and individual confounders, on farmers' adoption of competing improved soybean varieties in Ghana. Based on the contagion conceptual framework, we employ a spatial autoregressive multinomial probit model to examine how neighbours' varietal and cross‐varietal adoption of improved varieties affect a farmer's adoption decision in the social network. Our results show that adoption decisions in a network tend to converge on one variety, such that beyond a threshold of adopting neighbours of that improved variety, the cross‐varietal effects tend to lose significance in the network. If the shares of adopting neighbours of the improved varieties are equal, we find evidence that farmers are not more likely to adopt either improved variety compared to farmers with no neighbours who have adopted the improved varieties. The findings demonstrate the significance of neighbourhood effects in the adoption of competing technologies.