Strategic Diffusion: Public Goods vs. Public Bads

Arthur Campbell, D.J. Thornton and Yves Zenou

No 19443, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We study the role of influence in a model of the diffusion of social behaviors in a network. Individual behavior creates either positive spillovers (public goods) or negative spillovers (public bads). Our notion of influence captures the causal effect of an agent's adoption decision on the adoption decision of others in the network. We study a phase transition in equilibrium behavior around which viral equilibria—where diffusion occurs among a nontrivial fraction of the population—emerge. Public goods exhibit a continuous phase transition in equilibrium adoption, while public bads exhibit a discontinuous transition-- they emerge suddenly. Our findings reconcile disparate evidence that attending a public protest is a strategic complement in some settings and a substitute in others.

Keywords: Diffusion; Public goods; Public bads; Narratives; Social Networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D43 D85 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-09
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP19443 (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:cpr:ceprdp:19443

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP19443

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CEPR ().