Altruism in Networks

Renaud Bourlès (), Yann Bramoullé and Eduardo Perez

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: We provide the first analysis of altruism in networks. Agents are embedded in a fixed network and care about the well-being of their network neighbors. Depending on incomes, they may provide financial support to their poorer friends. We study the Nash equilibria of the resulting game of transfers. We show that equilibria maximize a concave potential function. We establish existence, uniqueness of equilibrium consumption, and generic uniqueness of equilibrium transfers.We characterize the geometry of the network of transfers and highlight the key role played by transfer intermediaries. We then study comparative statics. A positive income shock to an individual benefits all. For small changes in incomes, agents in a component of the network of transfers act as if they were organized in an income-pooling community. A decrease in income inequality or expansion of the altruism network may increase consumption inequality.

Keywords: Economie quantitative; Private transfers; Altruism; Social networks; Neutrality; Inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-03
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://amu.hal.science/hal-01590007v1
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (62)

Published in Econometrica, 2017, 85 (2), pp.675--689. ⟨10.3982/ECTA13533⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://amu.hal.science/hal-01590007v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Altruism in Networks (2017)
Working Paper: Altruism in Networks (2017)
Working Paper: Altruism in Networks (2013)
Working Paper: Altruism in Networks (2013)
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:hal:journl:hal-01590007

DOI: 10.3982/ECTA13533

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().