Yves Zenou
Yves Zenou (Monash University)
Yves Zenou is a professor of economics at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, and holds the Richard Snape Chair in Business and Economics. His research interests include: Social interactions and network theory, urban economics, segregation and discrimination of ethnic minorities, criminality and education. His research is both theoretical and empirical. He has extensively worked on games on networks and has developed the concept of key player, which is the agent in a network who, once removed, reduces total activity the most. Yves Zenou has applied the concept of key player to crime, education, R&D, financial networks and growth in Africa.
The Value of Information in Technology Adoption: Theory and Evidence from Bangladesh
with Asad Islam, Philip Ushchev, Xin Zhang
We develop a theoretical model in which technology adoption decisions are based on information received from others about the quality of a new technology and on their risk attitude. We test the predictions of this model using a field experiment in Bangladesh. We show that the share of treated farmers who receive better training in System of Rice Intensification (SRI) technology have a higher positive impact on the adoption rate of untreated farmers. We also find that untreated farmers who are more risk-averse tend to adopt less and are less influenced by their treated peers. Finally, a trained farmer's impact on his untrained peers increases if he himself adopts SRI technology. Our results indicate that the crucial determinants of technology adoption for untreated farmers are the accuracy and reliability of information transmission about the quality of technology circulated among farmers and their degree of risk aversion.