Purpose – The effects of social learning and network externalities in the diffusion of a new product imply that there should be local spillovers from existing owners to new adopters in a closely-related community. Using the data from a unique household survey in rural China, this paper...

We analyze the impacts of power supply, tap water, and other public services on the demand for color TVs, washing machines, and refrigerators in rural China using data from a survey of 20,000 rural households in 1999 designed for this research. We find that the provision of public goods and the...