Social interaction and technology adoption: Experimental evidence from improved cookstoves in Mali

Easy-to-use and low-risk technologies, which require little investment and potentially provide health and\r\nenvironmental benefits, often have low adoption rates. Using a randomized experiment in urban Mali, we\r\nassess the impact of a training session in which information on an improved cookstove (ICS) is provided\r\nalong with the opportunity to purchase the product at the market price. We find strong effects from our\r\ninvitation to the session on ICS ownership and usage while no discernible effects on product knowledge\r\nor household welfare. We find that some diffusion occurs beyond the intervention and provide evidence\r\non the role of social interaction, mostly through imitation