Macroscopic and microscopic perspectives for adoption of technologies in the USA

Abstract

Adoption of a new technology depends on many factors. Marketing, advertising, social interactions, and personal convictions are relevant features when deciding to adopt, or not, a new technology. Thus, it is very important to determine the relative weight of these factors when introducing a new technology. Here we discuss an agent based model to investigate the behavior of agents exposed to advertising and social contacts. Agents may follow the social pressure, or maybe contrarians, acting against the majority, to decide if they adopt or not a new technology. First, we solve analytically the model that relies on the above quoted factors. Then, we compare the theoretical results with empirical data concerning the adoption of innovations by American households during the 20th century. The analysis of the diffusion dynamics process is done either for the whole period, or by periods based on the so-called technical-economic paradigms, according to Freeman and Perez. Three different periods are considered: before 1920, from 1920 to 1970, and after 1970. We study the evolution of the model parameters for each technical-economic period. Finally, by adjusting the key parameters we are able to collapse all the data into a universal curve that describes all the adoption processes.