Agents of Change and the Approximation of Network Outcomes: a Simulation Study

Bruno Wichmann

Networks and Spatial Economics, 2015, vol. 15, issue 1, 17-41

Abstract: This paper reports results of a simulation designed to evaluate the precision of Neumann approximations of outcomes of networked economic systems. We simulate systems with Erdös-Renyi, Watts-Strogatz, and Barabási-Albert networks. We discuss the conditions under which second-order approximations of economic outcomes generate small errors. We find that in certain economic systems data requirement is significantly reduced if the research goal is to predict economic outcomes of targeted agents (as opposed to outcomes of the entire system). Despite the systems’ complex network structure, our simulations indicate that sampling the targeted group, its connections, and the connections of its connections is sufficient to predict outcomes. As a result, economic policy that targets this specific group should focus on agents in the two-order of distance sample as opposed to the entire network. This sample of agents can be thought of as the group’s agents of change or opinion leaders. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Keywords: Neumann series; Neumann approximations; Networks; Snowball sampling; Networked systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11067-014-9266-2 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to 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:kap:netspa:v:15:y:2015:i:1:p:17-41

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11067/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11067-014-9266-2

Access Statistics for this article

Networks and Spatial Economics is currently edited by Terry L. Friesz

More articles in Networks and Spatial Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().