Analyzing Technology Adoption: Challenges and Limitations of Micro-studies

Although the questions about the use of improved technologies in developing country agriculture have expanded to include the roles of policies, institutions and infrastructure, most micro-level adoption studies can not address these important policy issues. Drawing on an extensive review of the literature on the adoption of agricultural technologies, this paper suggests alternative approaches for designing technology adoption studies to make them useful for policy makers. It explores the generic limitations of cross-sectional adoption studies carried out in small number of communities and discusses the problems faced in conducting such studies. Recommendations include the use of sampling approaches that allow data from micro-studies to be generalized to higher levels of aggregation, adherence to clearly defined terms that are standardized across studies, and carefully examining the assumptions that often underlie such studies. In addition, the use and interpretation of proxy variables for the policy variables are discussed.