MISSING DATA AS PART OF THE SOCIAL BEHAVIOR IN REAL-WORLD FINANCIAL COMPLEX SYSTEMS

Guy Kelman (), Eran Manes, Marco Lamieri and David S. Brée ()
Additional contact information
Guy Kelman: Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
Eran Manes: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva, Israel3Jerusalem College of Technology, Jerusalem, Israel
David S. Brée: University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), 2018, vol. 21, issue 01, 1-30

Abstract: Many real-world networks are known to exhibit facts that counter our knowledge prescribed by the theories on network creation and communication patterns. A common prerequisite in network analysis is that information on nodes and links will be complete because network topologies are extremely sensitive to missing information of this kind. Therefore, many real-world networks that fail to meet this criterion under random sampling may be discarded.In this paper, we offer a framework for interpreting the missing observations in network data under the hypothesis that these observations are not missing at random. We demonstrate the methodology with a case study of a financial trade network, where the awareness of agents to the data collection procedure by a self-interested observer may result in strategic revealing or withholding of information. The non-random missingness has been overlooked despite the possibility of this being an important feature of the processes by which the network is generated. The analysis demonstrates that strategic information withholding may be a valid general phenomenon in complex systems. The evidence is sufficient to support the existence of an influential observer and to offer a compelling dynamic mechanism for the creation of the network.

Keywords: Complex systems; networks; data collection; missing nodes/links; dissortative networks; assortative mixing; observer effect; strategic information withholding (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219525918500029
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:wsi:acsxxx:v:21:y:2018:i:01:n:s0219525918500029

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

DOI: 10.1142/S0219525918500029

Access Statistics for this article

Advances in Complex Systems (ACS) is currently edited by Frank Schweitzer

More articles in Advances in Complex Systems (ACS) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().