Strong ties in a small world

Marco van der Leij and Sanjeev Goyal

Working Papers. Serie AD from Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie)

Abstract: This paper examines the celebrated "Strength of weak ties" theory of Granovetter(1973). We formalize the theory in terms of two hypotheses: one, for any threeplayers with two links present, the probability of a third link being present isincreasing in the strength of the two ties, and two, the removal of a weak tieincreases average distance in the network more than the removal of a strong tie. We test these hypotheses using data on the network of coauthorship amongeconomists. We find support for the hypothesis of transitivity of strong ties, but we reject thehypothesis that weak ties reduce distance more than strong ties do. We then identify two general features of networks which explain these findings:significant inequality in the distribution of connections across individuals andstronger ties among individuals who have more connections.

Keywords: network; strength of weak ties; core-periphery; co-authorship network (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A14 D85 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2010-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gth, nep-net and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Published by Ivie

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http://www.ivie.es/downloads/docs/wpasad/wpasad-2010-02.pdf Fisrt version / Primera version, 2010 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Strong Ties in a Small World (2011)
Working Paper: Strong Ties in a Small World (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ivi:wpasad:2010-02

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