IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/gamebe/v103y2017icp286-312.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social groups and social network formation

Author

Listed:
  • Tarbush, Bassel
  • Teytelboym, Alexander

Abstract

We present a dynamic model of social network formation in which a fixed number of agents interact in overlapping social groups. We derive several results on the formation of links in such networks, including results on the degree distribution, on comparative statics relating degree and group size, and on the dynamics of homophily. In particular, we derive comparative statics showing that degree is typically positively related to social group size but negatively related to the size of the overlap across multiple social groups. This is supported by evidence from a Facebook dataset. We also show that homophily over an agent's lifespan in the network can be non-monotonic, reaching a global maximum in some period before eventually decreasing.

Suggested Citation

  • Tarbush, Bassel & Teytelboym, Alexander, 2017. "Social groups and social network formation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 286-312.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:103:y:2017:i:c:p:286-312
    DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2015.11.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899825615001529
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.geb.2015.11.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bramoullé, Yann & Currarini, Sergio & Jackson, Matthew O. & Pin, Paolo & Rogers, Brian W., 2012. "Homophily and long-run integration in social networks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(5), pages 1754-1786.
    2. Matthew O. Jackson, 2014. "Networks in the Understanding of Economic Behaviors," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(4), pages 3-22, Fall.
    3. Jackson, Matthew O. & Wolinsky, Asher, 1996. "A Strategic Model of Social and Economic Networks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 44-74, October.
    4. Sergio Currarini & Matthew O. Jackson & Paolo Pin, 2009. "An Economic Model of Friendship: Homophily, Minorities, and Segregation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(4), pages 1003-1045, July.
    5. Michael Kremer & Dan Levy, 2008. "Peer Effects and Alcohol Use among College Students," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(3), pages 189-206, Summer.
    6. Constanza Fosco & Matteo Marsili & Fernando Vega-Redondo, 2010. "Peer Effects and Peer Avoidance: The Diffusion of Behavior in Coevolving Networks," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(1), pages 169-202, March.
    7. Armin Falk & Andrea Ichino, 2006. "Clean Evidence on Peer Effects," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(1), pages 39-58, January.
    8. Mark Granovetter, 2005. "The Impact of Social Structure on Economic Outcomes," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(1), pages 33-50, Winter.
    9. Venkatesh Bala & Sanjeev Goyal, 2000. "A Noncooperative Model of Network Formation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(5), pages 1181-1230, September.
    10. Bruce Sacerdote, 2001. "Peer Effects with Random Assignment: Results for Dartmouth Roommates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 681-704.
    11. Traud, Amanda L. & Mucha, Peter J. & Porter, Mason A., 2012. "Social structure of Facebook networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 391(16), pages 4165-4180.
    12. de Marti, Joan & Zenou, Yves, 2011. "Identity and Social Distance in Friendship Formation," Research Papers in Economics 2011:13, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    13. Mayer, Adalbert & Puller, Steven L., 2008. "The old boy (and girl) network: Social network formation on university campuses," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1-2), pages 329-347, February.
    14. Matthew O. Jackson & Brian W. Rogers, 2007. "Meeting Strangers and Friends of Friends: How Random Are Social Networks?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 890-915, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Calvano, Emilio & Immordino, Giovanni & Scognamiglio, Annalisa, 2022. "What drives segregation? Evidence from social interactions among students," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    2. Jasmina Arifovic & Giuseppe Danese, 2018. "Homophily and Social Norms in Experimental Network Formation Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-22, October.
    3. Ping Sun & Elena Parilina, 2022. "Impact of Utilities on the Structures of Stable Networks with Ordered Group Partitioning," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 1131-1162, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Matthew O. Jackson & Brian W. Rogers & Yves Zenou, 2016. "Networks: An Economic Perspective," Papers 1608.07901, arXiv.org.
    2. Lorenzo Ductor & Sanjeev Goyal & Anja Prummer, 2018. "Gender & Collaboration," Working Papers 856, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    3. Jackson, Matthew O. & Zenou, Yves, 2015. "Games on Networks," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    4. Antoine Mandel & Xavier Venel, 2022. "Sequential competition and the strategic origins of preferential attachment," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 51(3), pages 483-508, November.
    5. Andreas Bjerre-Nielsen, 2015. "Sorting in Networks: Adversity and Structure," Papers 1503.07389, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2017.
    6. Rediet Abebe & Nicole Immorlica & Jon Kleinberg & Brendan Lucier & Ali Shirali, 2022. "On the Effect of Triadic Closure on Network Segregation," Papers 2205.13658, arXiv.org.
    7. Samuel Bowles & Glenn C. Loury & Rajiv Sethi, 2014. "Group Inequality," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 129-152, February.
    8. Patacchini, Eleonora & Bisin, Alberto, 2019. "Dynamic Social Interactions and Health Risk Behavior," CEPR Discussion Papers 13918, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Vigier, A., 2008. "Globalization, Education, and the Topology of Social Networks," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0851, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    10. Matthew O. Jackson & Brian W. Rogers & Yves Zenou, 2017. "The Economic Consequences of Social-Network Structure," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(1), pages 49-95, March.
    11. Federico Ciliberto & Emily E. Cook & Jonathan W. Williams, 2019. "Network Structure and Consolidation in the U.S. Airline Industry, 1990–2015," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 54(1), pages 3-36, February.
    12. Youngsub Chun & Sunghoon Hong & Bong Chan Koh, 2017. "Population invariance properties of social and economic networks," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 13(3), pages 255-267, September.
    13. Alex Centeno, 2022. "A Structural Model for Detecting Communities in Networks," Papers 2209.08380, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2022.
    14. Büchel, Konstantin & Ehrlich, Maximilian v., 2020. "Cities and the structure of social interactions: Evidence from mobile phone data," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    15. Angelo Mele, 2010. "A structural model of segregation in social networks," CeMMAP working papers CWP32/10, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    16. Irene Crimaldi & Michela Del Vicario & Greg Morrison & Walter Quattrociocchi & Massimo Riccaboni, 2015. "Homophily and Triadic Closure in Evolving Social Networks," Working Papers 3/2015, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, revised May 2015.
    17. Baul, Tushi, 2013. "Self-selection and peer-effects in experimental labor markets," ISU General Staff Papers 201301010800004327, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    18. , David, 2016. "The formation of networks with local spillovers and limited observability," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(3), September.
    19. Acemoglu, Daron & Makhdoumi, Ali & Malekian, Azarakhsh & Ozdaglar, Asuman, 2017. "Privacy-constrained network formation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 255-275.
    20. Jiménez-Martínez, Antonio & Melguizo-López, Isabel, 2022. "Making friends: The role of assortative interests and capacity constraints," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 203(C), pages 431-465.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social groups; Dynamic network formation; Social networks; Homophily;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation
    • A14 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Sociology of Economics
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:gamebe:v:103:y:2017:i:c:p:286-312. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622836 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.