《AER》| Beaman et al：基于网络理论的目标定位能促进技术的采用吗?

摘要：为了引导农民采用一种生新的农业产技术，我们基于马拉维200个村庄的丰富的社会网络数据，应用简单和复杂的传染扩散模型，确定样本农户，并对其新技术进行培训。对照组则是将理论上的社会网络定位样本农户与传统的推广方法下的样本农户进行了比较，传统的推广方法下的样本农户选择主要考虑是否有政府推广人员进行推广，或农户家庭之间的地理距离 (一个容易测量的社会网络代理变量)。研究结果表明，技术的传播与扩散具有复杂的途径，大多数农民在采用技术之前需要向多人学习。以网络理论为基础的目标拓展方法优于传统的推广方法， 而且政策制定者采用此方式进行农业技术推广的成本将会更低。

Abstract: In order to induce farmers to adopt a productive new agricultural technology, we apply simple and complex contagion diffusion models on rich social network data from 200 villages in Malawi to identify seed farmers to target and train on the new technology.  A randomized controlled trial compares these theory-driven network targeting approaches to simpler  strategies that either rely on a government extension worker or an easily measurable proxy for the social network (geographic distance between households) to identify seed farmers.  Our results indicate that technology diffusion is characterized by a complex contagion learning environment in which most farmers need to learn from multiple people before they adopt themselves. Network theory based targeting can out-perform traditional approaches to extension, and we identify methods to realize these gains at low cost to policymakers.

《The American Economic Review》是一本综合性经济学期刊。目前该期刊影响因子为5.558。研究内容涉及经济理论、应用经济学和经济政策的各个领域。AER成立于 1911 年，是美国历史最悠久、最受尊敬的经济学学术期刊之一。

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