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. 2018 May:149:239-268.
doi: 10.1016/j.jebo.2017.12.025. Epub 2018 Apr 16.

Receptiveness to advice, cognitive ability, and technology adoption☆

Bradford L Barham  1 , Jean-Paul Chavas  1 , Dylan Fitz  2 , Laura Schechter  1
Affiliations

Receptiveness to advice, cognitive ability, and technology adoption☆

Bradford L Barham et al. J Econ Behav Organ. 2018 May.

Abstract

We construct a model of technology adoption with agents differing on two dimensions: their cognitive ability and their receptiveness to advice. While cognitive ability unambiguously speeds adoption, receptiveness to advice may speed adoption for individuals with low cognitive ability, but slow adoption for individuals with high cognitive ability. We conduct economic experiments measuring US farmers' cognitive ability and receptiveness to advice and examine how these characteristics impact their speed of adoption of genetically modified (GM) corn seeds. The empirical analysis shows that early adopters are those who are both quite able cognitively and not receptive to advice.

Keywords: Advice-taking; Cognitive ability; Economic experiments; Genetically modified seeds; Learning; Receptiveness to advice; Responsiveness to advice; Technology adoption.

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Figures

Fig. B.1.
Fig. B.1.
Farmer and advice-giver APEs in the advice-taking game. Absolute percentage error (APE) from the 25 circles in the advice-taking game. This is the absolute difference between the prediction and the truth, divided by the truth. Pre-advice and post-advice APE are from the farmers and advice APE is from the advice giver.
Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Average APE over time. This figure depicts the average absolute percentage error (APE) over all farmers in each round except the first. It is overlaid with an exponential fit line.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
(a) Cognitive ability (own precision, ρu). (b) Responsiveness (advice weight, αv). (c) Receptiveness (advice perceived precision, ρv).
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Corn adoption. Predicted hazard ratios from the survival analysis in Table 3 column (6) at the 5th, 50th, and 95th percentile cognitive ability.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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