Radio and technology adoption during India’s Green Revolution: Evidence from a natural experiment

Can mass communication play a role in spurring technology adoption and productivity growth in agriculture, particularly when there are significant barriers to social learning? To answer this question, I estimate the impact of regional radio broadcasts, that included significant farm programming, on the adoption of high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of rice and wheat during the Green Revolution in India. I exploit the staggered expansion of the regional radio network to identify the impact. Using an annual district-level administrative dataset from 1966 to 1978, I find that introduction of regional farm radio broadcasts led to a large persistent increase in the adoption of HYVs of rice, a spatially heterogeneous technology less amenable to social learning. By contrast, there was at most a transient impact on the adoption of HYVs of wheat, a spatially homogeneous technology with a lot of scope for social learning. Importantly, I find that the regional farm radio broadcasts increased rice yields by 15%, a magnitude potentially large enough to justify the investments in the expansion of the regional radio network. Overall, this paper demonstrates that mass communication can indeed play a key role in diffusing profitable agricultural innovations when there are significant barriers to social learning.