wow-inequalities/02-data/intermediate/wos_sample/5eb05297fbc7e50d793d48a6e4d2b6e8-alfaro-serrano-davi/info.yaml

abstract: 'Background The adoption of improved technologies is generally associated

  with better economic performance and development. Despite its desirable

  effects, the process of technology adoption can be quite slow and market

  failures and other frictions may impede adoption. Interventions in

  market processes may be necessary to promote the adoption of beneficial

  technologies. This review systematically identifies and summarizes the

  evidence on the effects of interventions that shape the incentives of

  firms to adopt new technologies. Following Foster and Rosenzweig,

  technology is defined as ``the relationship between inputs and

  outputs,{''''} and technology adoption as ``the use of new mappings

  between input and outputs and the corresponding allocations of inputs

  that exploit the new mappings.{''''} The review focuses on studies that

  include direct evidence on technology adoption, broadly defined, as an

  outcome. The term intervention refers broadly to sources of exogenous

  variation that shape firms'' incentives to adopt new technologies,

  including public policies, interventions carried out by private

  institutions (such as NGOs), experimental manipulations implemented by

  academic researchers trying to understand technology adoption, and

  natural experiments. Objective The objective of this review is to answer

  the following research questions: To what extent do interventions affect

  technology adoption in firms? To what extent does technology adoption

  affect profits, employment, productivity, and yields? Are these effects

  heterogeneous across sectors, firm size, countries, workers'' skill

  level, or workers'' gender? 1.2.3. Selection Criteria To be included,

  papers had to meet the inclusion criteria described in detail in Section

  3.1 which is grouped into four categories: (1) Participants, (2)

  Interventions, (3) Methodology, and (4) Outcomes. Regarding

  participants, our focus was on firms, and we omitted studies at the

  country or region level. In terms of interventions, we included studies

  that analyzed a source of exogenous variation in incentives for firms to

  adopt new technologies and estimated their effects. Thus, we left out

  studies that only looked at correlates of technology adoption, without a

  credible strategy to establish causality, and only included studies that

  used experimental or quasi-experimental methods. Regarding outcomes,

  papers were included only if they estimated effects of interventions

  (broadly defined) on technology adoption, although we also considered

  other firm outcomes as secondary outcomes in studies that reported them.

  Search Methods The first step in selecting the studies to be included in

  the systematic review was to identify a set of candidate papers. This

  set included both published and unpublished studies. To look for

  candidate papers, we implemented an electronic search and, in a

  subsequent step, a manual search. The electronic search involved running

  a keyword search on the most commonly used databases for published and

  unpublished academic studies in the broad topic area. The words and

  their Boolean combinations were carefully chosen (more details in

  Section 3.2). The selected papers were initially screened on title and

  abstract. If papers passed this screen, they were screened on full text.

  Those studies that met the stated criteria were then selected for

  analysis. The manual search component involved asking for references

  from experts and searching references cited by papers selected through

  the electronic search. These additional papers were screened based on

  title and abstract and the remaining were screened on full text.

  If they met the criteria they were added to the list of selected

  studies. Data Collection and Analysis For the selected studies, the

  relevant estimates of effects and their associated standard errors (SEs)

  were entered into an Excel spreadsheet along with other related

  information such as sample size, variable type, and duration for flow

  variables. Other information such as authors, year of publication, and

  country and/or region where the study was implemented was also included

  in the spreadsheet. Once the data were entered for each of the selected

  studies, the information on sample size, effect size and SE of the

  effect size was used to compute the standardized effect size for each

  study to make the results comparable across studies. For those studies

  for which relevant data were not reported, we contacted the authors by

  email and incorporated the information they provided. Forest plots were

  then generated and within-study pooled average treatment effects were

  computed by outcome variable. In addition, an assessment of reporting on

  potential biases was conducted including (1) reporting on key aspects of

  selection bias and confounding, (2) reporting on spillovers of

  interventions to comparison groups, (3) reporting of SEs, and (4)

  reporting on Hawthorne effects and the collection of retrospective data.

  Results The electronic and manual searches resulted in 42,462 candidate

  papers. Of these, 80 studies were ultimately selected for the review

  after screenings to apply the selection criteria. Relevant data were

  extracted for analysis from these 80 studies. Overall, 1108 regression

  coefficients across various interventions and outcomes were included in

  the analysis, representing a total of 4,762,755 firms. Even though the

  search methods included both high-income and developing countries, only

  1 of the 80 studies included in the analysis was in a high-income

  country, while the remaining 79 were in developing countries. We discuss

  the results in two parts, looking at firms in manufacturing and services

  separately from firms (i.e., farms) in agriculture. In each case, we

  consider both technology adoption and other firm outcomes. Authors''

  Conclusions Overall, our results suggest that some interventions led to

  positive impacts on technology adoption among firms across

  manufacturing, services, and agriculture sectors, but given the wide

  variation in the time periods, contexts, and study methodologies, the

  results are hard to generalize. The effects of these interventions on

  other firm performance measures such as farm yields, firm profits,

  productivity, and employment were mixed. Policy-makers must be careful

  in interpreting these results as a given intervention may not work

  equally well across contexts and may need to be adjusted to each

  specific regional context. There is great need for more research on the

  barriers to technology adoption by firms in developing countries and

  interventions that may help alleviate these obstacles. One major

  implication for researchers from our review is that there is a need to

  carefully measure technology adoption.'
affiliation: 'Goicoechea, A (Corresponding Author), World Bank Grp, 1818 H St NW,
  Washington, DC 20433 USA.

  Alfaro-Serrano, David, Cornerstone Res, New York, NY USA.

  Balantrapu, Tanay; Goicoechea, Ana, World Bank Grp, 1818 H St NW, Washington, DC
  20433 USA.

  Chaurey, Ritam, Johns Hopkins Univ, SAIS, Washington, DC USA.

  Verhoogen, Eric, Columbia Univ, Dept Econ, New York, NY 10027 USA.

  Verhoogen, Eric, Columbia Univ, Sch Int \& Publ Affairs, New York, NY USA.'
article-number: e1181
author: Alfaro-Serrano, David and Balantrapu, Tanay and Chaurey, Ritam and Goicoechea,
  Ana and Verhoogen, Eric
author-email: agoicoechea@worldbank.org
author_list:
- family: Alfaro-Serrano
  given: David
- family: Balantrapu
  given: Tanay
- family: Chaurey
  given: Ritam
- family: Goicoechea
  given: Ana
- family: Verhoogen
  given: Eric
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.1002/cl2.1181
eissn: 1891-1803
files: []
journal: CAMPBELL SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS
keywords-plus: 'SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA; FEMALE ENTREPRENEURSHIP; TECHNICAL CHANGE; IMPACT;

  BUSINESS; FARMERS; PRODUCTIVITY; INFORMATION; SELECTION; MARKETS'
language: English
month: DEC
number: '4'
number-of-cited-references: '111'
papis_id: 783c3aef691a2efcb8c11261b0b3baf2
ref: Alfaroserrano2021interventionspromote
researcherid-numbers: Pereira, Fernanda/AID-4926-2022
tags:
- review
times-cited: '0'
title: 'Interventions to promote technology adoption in firms: A systematic review'
type: article
unique-id: WOS:000731087200003
usage-count-last-180-days: '2'
usage-count-since-2013: '6'
volume: '17'
web-of-science-categories: Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary
year: '2021'