中文摘要
对于许多技术与行为而言，行为主体采纳的收益取决于其联系人是否采纳，而其联系人采纳的收益又取决于这些联系人的联系人是否采纳。本文考察这些连接的架构如何塑造创新扩散的成败。我们从一个标准的扩散模型出发，其关键扩展在于引入部分行为主体可以协调其决策这一设定。这刻画了这样一种现象：人们常常与朋友或家人共同商议并决定是否采纳某项技术。我们表明，连接的封闭性（insularity），即行为主体倾向于将其连接集中于一小部分其他主体的程度，决定了传染扩散的发生。然而，封闭性究竟促进还是阻碍扩散，取决于所扩散的技术类型。对于即使没有很多联系人采纳也仍有价值的技术，我们发现封闭的连接会阻碍采纳；而对于只有当很多联系人采纳时才具有价值的技术，封闭的连接则会促进采纳。
Abstract
Abstract For many technologies and behaviours, an agent’s benefit from adopting depends on his contacts adopting, and the benefit to his contacts of adopting depends on their contacts adopting. This paper examines how the architecture of these connections shapes the success or failure of the diffusion of innovations. We start with a standard model of diffusion with the key addition that some agents can coordinate their decisions. This captures the idea that people often talk and make decisions together with friends or family to adopt technologies. We show that insularity of connections, that is, the extent to which agents tend to concentrate their connections to a narrow set of other agents, determines contagion. However, whether insularity helps or hinders depends on the technology being diffused. For technologies that are valuable even without many contacts adopting, we find insular connections hinder adoption, but for technologies that are valuable only when many contacts adopt, insular connections facilitate adoption.