The dynamics of a mobile phone network

Cesar Hidalgo and Carlos Rodriguez-Sickert ()

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2008, vol. 387, issue 12, 3017-3024

Abstract: The empirical study of network dynamics has been limited by the lack of longitudinal data. Here we introduce a quantitative indicator of link persistence to explore the correlations between the structure of a mobile phone network and the persistence of its links. We show that persistent links tend to be reciprocal and are more common for people with low degree and high clustering. We study the redundancy of the associations between persistence, degree, clustering and reciprocity and show that reciprocity is the strongest predictor of tie persistence. The method presented can be easily adapted to characterize the dynamics of other networks and can be used to identify the links that are most likely to survive in the future.

Keywords: Complex networks; Social networks; Social dynamics; Dynamical systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:387:y:2008:i:12:p:3017-3024

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2008.01.073

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