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Abstract

Adopting renewable energy technologies has been seen as a promising way to reduce CO2 emissions and address climate change. This paper investigates how social networks may affect renewable energy technology adoption. We distinguish two channels through which social networks may play a role: (i) the diffusion of information; and (ii) the diffusion of behavior. Most empirical studies fail to quantitatively separate the diffusion of information and behavior in social networks. We conduct a survey on biogas technology adoption in rural China to identify individualsâ�?�? egocentric information networks. In egocentric social networks, the individual of interest is defined as â�?�?egoâ�? and the people connected to the ego are defined as â�?�?altersâ�?. We find that both the diffusion of information and behavior drive farmersâ�?�? technology adoption. Farmers with larger egocentric information networks and a larger fraction of known adopters are more likely to adopt the biogas technology. In addition, we collect data on several attributes of alters to explore the composition of social networks. We find heterogeneous social network effects across different types of alter. Alters who have close relationships with egos such as friends and relatives or that are trusted by egos affect egosâ�?�? adoption through the diffusion of information, while less trusted alters such as government officials affect egosâ�?�? adoption through their adoption behavior.

Biography

Email: marcella.veronesi@univr.it