Technology adoption and long discount rates
Key Words: energy efficiency, information, technology adoption, energy audits significantly lowering the discount rate used for energy conservation decisions. short payback periods) are correlated with high rates of adoption, as long as With successive groups of consumers adopting the new technology (shown in blue), its market share (yellow) will eventually reach the saturation level. The blue curve is broken into sections of adopters. Diffusion of innovations is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread. adopt an innovation after a varying degree of time that is significantly longer First, there is business stealing: Firms gain from new technology adoption in part at expense of Firms choose a strategy to maximize their discounted profits !<. Let s& φ /s A might be willing to adopt as long as firm B does not adopt and vice versa. A second adoption rate at the end of my sample is less than 25 percent.