Study On The Influence Of Peer Effects On Farmers’ New Variety Adoption Behavior

New agricultural technology is an important means to improve agricultural production efficiency.Therefore,it is very important to promote the adoption of new agricultural technologies by farmers.However,many factors such as lack of information and uncertainty in new technology adoption often hinder farmers’ new technology adoption behavior.In the face of information shortage and uncertainty,farmers tend to get all kinds of information and help from other farmers through social interaction.Therefore,the peer effect in social interaction has an important influence on farmers’ technology adoption behavior.However,existing studies either focus on the impact of peer effect on farmers’ technology adoption behavior or pay attention to the specific mechanism of peer effect,and few uses multiple mechanisms to systematically analyze peer effect.Therefore,this paper aims to systematically analyze the peer effect of farmers’ technology adoption behavior by using multiple mechanisms,and verify each mechanism by using spatial econometric model and detailed social network data.The research content of this paper mainly includes three aspects.First,based on the existing theories and literature,this paper summarizes the multiple mechanisms of peer effect in the process of farmers’ new technology adoption,and constructs the basic model of this paper.Secondly,this paper analyzes the influence of peer effect on farmers’ technology adoption behavior and the trend of peer effect in different periods by using the model and the diffusion data of artemisia selengensis in Golden Rooster Village,Wuhan city.Thirdly,this paper uses social network data and basic model to verify several mechanisms of action studied in this paper,and carries out robustness test and heterogeneity analysis.The results of this study are as follows: First,peer effect has a significant positive impact on farmers’ new technology adoption behavior,and presents a U-shaped change trend over time;Secondly,the empirical effect has a positive influence on farmers’ technology adoption behavior in the early stage of technology diffusion.Thirdly,the externality effect has a positive influence on farmers’ technology adoption behavior in the later stage of technology diffusion.Finally,there is heterogeneity in the peer effect of agricultural technology adoption,and farmers belonging to large families are more affected by the peer effect than other farmers.