Just a Few Seeds More: The Value of Network Data for Diffusion

Mohammad Akbarpour, Suraj Malladi and Amin Saberi

American Economic Review, 2025, vol. 115, issue 11, 3713-48

Abstract: Identifying the optimal set of individuals to first receive information ("seeds") in a social network to maximize expected diffusion is a widely studied question in many settings. Several studies propose network-centrality-based heuristics to select seeds likely to increase diffusion. Here, we show that, for the classic independent cascade model of diffusion, either seeding a few more individuals at random can prompt a larger diffusion than optimal seeding or optimal seeding itself results in limited spread. These findings hold across a broad range of random networks and are supported by simulations on real-world networks.

JEL-codes: D83 D85 O12 O18 P25 P32 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20180798 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/24112 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/24113 (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:115:y:2025:i:11:p:3713-48

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

DOI: 10.1257/aer.20180798

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review is currently edited by Esther Duflo

More articles in American Economic Review from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().