The Speed of New Ideas: The Role of Trust in the Diffusion of New Technologies

Economic theory views the rates of technological development and diffusion as the prime engines of growth. But creating new technologies is not enough: they must be accepted by users in the economy. Adopting a new technology often requires trust that a new product is an actual improvement over what was available in the past. High-trust economies may enjoy a competitive advantage if new products diffuse more quickly and at lower cost.

Felix Oberholzer-Gee has developed an experiment to test whether the diffusion of a new product is facilitated if customers trust those who develop it. With support from the Foundation, he will study the adoption of a new plumbing device by professional plumbers. The producer of the product will send brochures to every plumber in Philadelphia. Oberholzer-Gee will measure this product's diffusion based on how many of the plumbers request more information about the device. He will then send surveys to each of the plumbers who received the survey in order to measure their level of trust. He will also see if stereotypes about the inventor of a new technology impact people's willingness to accept the technology. For this, he will vary the information on the order card that is sent with the brochure. On some cards, the picture of the engineer will be white, and on others he will be black.