Learning from Unincentivized and Incentivized Communication

A Randomized Controlled Trial in India

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4363013
AutoresYonas Alem (0000-0003-0009-4177, University of Gothenburg), Eugenie Dugoua (0000-0002-4176-8740, London School of Economics and Political Science)
Año2022
Volumen71
Número1
Páginas1-38
Fecha de publicación2022-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEconomic Development and Cultural Change (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0013-0079 • E-ISSN: 1539-2988
EditorialUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/714115
OpenAlexW3142760563
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas45

Interactions among peers of the same social network play significant roles in facilitating the adoption and diffusion of modern technologies in poor communities. We conduct a large-scale randomized controlled trial in rural India to identify the impact of information from friends on willingness to pay (WTP) for high-quality and multipurpose solar lanterns. We offered solar lanterns to seed households from 200 nonelectrified villages and randomly assigned three of their friends to two communication treatments (unincentivized and incentivized) that led to different exposures to their seed friend. We also introduce a second treatment to investigate whether the seed’s gender impacts the magnitude of peer effects. We show that unincentivized communication increases WTP for solar lanterns by 90% and incentivized communication by 145%, but gender does not seem to matter. We also show that learning from others is the mechanism that drives the increase in WTP. Our findings have significant implications for policies that aim at promoting the diffusion of new technologies in developing countries

Business · Developing country · Economic growth · Economics · Geography · Microeconomics · Peer effects · Quality (philosophy) · Randomized experiment · Scale (ratio) · Willingness to pay · Economic and Environmental Valuation · Innovation and Socioeconomic Development · Marketing · Microfinance and Financial Inclusion · Psychology · Social Psychology