An Overview of Diffusion in Complex Networks

Dunia López-Pintado ()
Additional contact information
Dunia López-Pintado: Department of Economics, Universidad Pablo de Olavide; CORE, Université catholique de Louvain

No 16.10, Working Papers from Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics

Abstract: We survey a series of theoretical contributions on diffusion in random networks. We start with a benchmark contagion process, referred in the epidemiology literature as the Susceptible-Infected-Susceptible model, which describes the spread of an infectious disease in a population. To make this model tractable, the interaction structure is considered as a heterogeneous sampling process characterized by the degree distribution. Within this framework, we distinguish between the case of unbiased-degree networks and biased-degree networks. We focus on the characterization of the diffusion threshold; that is, a condition on the primitives of the model that guarantees the spreading of the product to a significant fraction of the population, and its persistence. We also extend the analysis introducing a general diffusion model with features that are more appropriate for describing the diffusion of a new product, idea, behavior, etc.

Keywords: degree distribution; random networks; diffusion threshold; endemic state; homophily. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C73 L14 O31 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2016-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gth
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.upo.es/serv/bib/wps/econ1610.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:pab:wpaper:16.10

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics Carretera de Utrera km.1, 41013 Sevilla. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Publicación Digital - UPO ().