Social Frictions to Knowledge Diffusion: Evidence from an Information Intervention

Arthur Alik-Lagrange and Martin Ravallion

No 21877, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Does knowledge about antipoverty programs spread quickly within poor communities or are there significant frictions, such as due to social exclusion? We combine longitudinal and intra-household observations in estimating the direct knowledge gain from watching an information movie in rural India, while randomized village assignment identifies knowledge sharing with those in treatment villages who did not watch the movie. Knowledge is found to be shared within villages, but less so among illiterate and lower caste individuals, especially when also poor; these groups relied more on actually seeing the movie. Sizable biases are evident in impact estimators that ignore knowledge spillovers.

JEL-codes: D83 I38 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-knm, nep-ltv and nep-ure
Note: DEV PE
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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