What's a Menstrual Cup?

Now here's a peer effect paper you don't see everyday. From Emily Oster and Rebecca Thornton, and the paper is entitled, "Determinants of Technology Adoption: Private Value and Peer Effects in Menstrual Cup Take-Up". The abstract reads:

We estimate the determinants of technology adoption using data from a randomized evaluation of menstrual cups in Nepal, focusing on the role of technology value and peer eects in driving adoption. A menstrual cup is a small, silicone, bell-shaped device which is used internally during menstruation. The individual randomization of cup allows us to estimate causal eects of peer exposure on adoption; differences in the need for mobility and inconvenience of the alternative menstrual protection allow us to estimate effects of cup value. We find both peer exposure and cup value matter for adoption. Further, because our data includes measures of cup trial and cup usage we are able to identify mechanisms through which these eects operate, differentiating between desire to use (trial) and ability to use (usage conditional on trial). We find evidence that peer exposure matters both because people want to act like their friends, and because they learn how to use the cup from their friends. Higher cup benefits increase individual desire to use the cup, but do not aect ability to use it. Policy simulations suggest that targeting distribution based on either cup value or social networks yields higher usage than random distribution, but which type of targeting is better depends on whether early adoption or longer-term adoption is targeted.

This is great, in all seriousness. The peer effect and randomized experiment methodology is turning out to be a really fruitful avenue for understanding the importance of social networks in determining labor and health outcomes.