EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Social activity and network formation

, ()
Additional contact information
,: Department of Economics, University of Cambridge

Theoretical Economics, 2015, vol. 10, issue 2

Abstract: This paper develops a simple model in which a social hierarchy emerges endogenously when agents form a network for complementary interaction (``activity''). Specifically, we assume that agents are ex ante identical and their best response activity, as well as their value function, increases (strictly) concavely in the total activity of their neighbours in the network. There exists a unique and stable positive activity equilibrium on exogenous networks under mild conditions. When we endogenise network formation, equilibria become strongly structured: more active players have more neighbours, i.e. a higher degree, but tend to sponsor fewer links. Additionally, in strict equilibria agents separate themselves into groups characterised by the symmetric activity of their members. The characteristic activity decreases in group size and the network is a complete multipartite graph.

Keywords: Network formation; strategic complementarity; supermodularity; peer effects; social hierarchy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D00 D85 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-05-27
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

Downloads: (external link)
http://econtheory.org/ojs/index.php/te/article/viewFile/20150315/13018/383 (application/pdf)

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:the:publsh:1487

Access Statistics for this article

Theoretical Economics is currently edited by Simon Board, Todd D. Sarver, Juuso Toikka, Rakesh Vohra, Pierre-Olivier Weill

More articles in Theoretical Economics from Econometric Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Martin J. Osborne ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-20
Handle: RePEc:the:publsh:1487