Behavioural patterns in social networks

Anna Contea, Daniela Di Cagno and Emanuela Sciubbad
Additional contact information
Anna Contea: Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena
Emanuela Sciubbad: Birkbeck College, University of London
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Anna Conte

No 2011-060, Jena Economics Research Papers from Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena

Abstract: In this paper, we focus on the analysis of individual decision making for the formation of social networks, using experimentally generated data. We first analyse the determinants of the individual demand for links under the assumption of agents' static expectations. The results of this exercise subsequently allow us to identify patterns of behaviour that can be subsumed in three strategies of link formation: 1) reciprocator strategy - players propose links to those from whom they have received link proposals in the previous round; 2) myopic best response strategy - players aim to profit from maximisation; 3) opportunistic strategy - players reciprocate link proposals to those who have the largest number of connections. We find that these strategies explain approximately 76% of the observed choices. We finally estimate a mixture model to highlight the proportion of the population who adopt each of these strategies.

Keywords: Network formation; Experiments; Multivariate probit models; Mixture models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C33 C35 C90 D85 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-12-20
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-net and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://oweb.b67.uni-jena.de/Papers/jerp2011/wp_2011_060.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: BEHAVIORAL PATTERNS IN SOCIAL NETWORKS (2015)
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:jrp:jrpwrp:2011-060

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Jena Economics Research Papers from Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Markus Pasche ().