Social interaction and technology adoption: Experimental evidence from improved cookstoves in Mali

Jacopo Bonan, Pietro Battiston, Jaimie Bleck, Philippe LeMay-Boucher, Stefano Pareglio, Bassirou Sarr and Massimo Tavoni

World Development, 2021, vol. 144, issue C

Abstract: Easy-to-use and low-risk technologies, which require little investment and potentially provide health and environmental benefits, often have low adoption rates. Using a randomized experiment in urban Mali, we assess the impact of a training session in which information on an improved cookstove (ICS) is provided along with the opportunity to purchase the product at the market price. We find strong effects from our invitation to the session on ICS ownership and usage while no discernible effects on product knowledge or household welfare. We find that some diffusion occurs beyond the intervention and provide evidence on the role of social interaction, mostly through imitation

Keywords: Technology adoption; Social Interaction; Imitation effects; Cookstoves; Mali (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 M31 O13 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X21000796
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Social Interaction and Technology Adoption: Experimental Evidence from Improved Cookstoves in Mali (2020)
Working Paper: Social Interaction and Technology Adoption: Experimental Evidence from Improved Cookstoves in Mali (2018)
Working Paper: Social Interaction and Technology Adoption: Experimental Evidence from Improved Cookstoves in Mali (2017)
Working Paper: Social Interaction and Technology Adoption: Experimental Evidence from Improved Cookstoves in Mali (2017)
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:eee:wdevel:v:144:y:2021:i:c:s0305750x21000796

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105467

Access Statistics for this article

World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes

More articles in World Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().