An agent based model is developed in which a social hierarchy of leaders and followers emerges from a uniform or random social network. The formation of the social structure is driven by the desire to be an early adopter of a subsequently popular trend. The environment is related to a majority game, but introduces the importance of the timing of adoption. The proposed environment is relevant to a number of settings in which leadership and timing of decisions are important or being perceived as a trend setter is rewarded. The leadership position can be selfreinforcing. For a professional critic, for example, a cult-of-personality can dictate popular tastes, such as in art, food, and wine markets. A social hierarchy can also apply to the introduction of new products or ideas including academic research and financial market analysts.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by School of Finance and Economics, University of Technology, Sydney in its series Working Paper Series with number
155.
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)