Improving diffusion in agriculture: an agent-based model to find the predictors for efficient early adopters

Angela Barbuto, Antonio Lopolito and Fabio Santeramo
Additional contact information
Angela Barbuto: University of Foggia
Antonio Lopolito: University of Foggia

Agricultural and Food Economics, 2019, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Proven that the adoption rate of a new product is influenced by the network characteristics of the early adopters, the aim of this paper is to find the network features of the early adopters associated with high adoption rates of a specific new practice: the use of biodegradable mulching films containing soluble bio-based substances derived from municipal solid wastes. We simulated the diffusion process by means of an agent-based model calibrated on real-world data. Closeness and clusterization emerged as the most important network characteristics for early adopters to be successful. The results achieved represent the basis for the breaking down of a tailored diffusion strategy to overcome the psychological and socio-economic barriers of this kind of innovation within an environmental and sustainability-oriented transition policy in a rural context.

Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1186/s40100-019-0121-0 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:agfoec:v:7:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1186_s40100-019-0121-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... nomics/journal/40100

DOI: 10.1186/s40100-019-0121-0

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural and Food Economics is currently edited by Alessandro Banterle, Liesbeth Dries, Andrea Marchini and Carlo Russo

More articles in Agricultural and Food Economics from Springer, Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().