IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2412.11957.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Multiplexing in Networks and Diffusion

Author

Listed:
  • Arun G. Chandrasekhar
  • Vasu Chaudhary
  • Benjamin Golub
  • Matthew O. Jackson

Abstract

Social and economic networks are often multiplexed, meaning that people are connected by different types of relationships -- such as borrowing goods and giving advice. We make three contributions to the study of multiplexing. First, we document empirical multiplexing patterns in Indian village data: relationships such as socializing, advising, helping, and lending are correlated but distinct, while commonly used proxies for networks based on ethnicity and geography are nearly uncorrelated with actual relationships. Second, we examine how these layers and their overlap affect information diffusion in a field experiment. The advice network is the best predictor of diffusion, but combining layers improves predictions further. Villages with greater overlap between layers (more multiplexing) experience less overall diffusion. This leads to our third contribution: developing a model and theoretical results about diffusion in multiplex networks. Multiplexing slows the spread of simple contagions, such as diseases or basic information, but can either impede or enhance the spread of complex contagions, such as new technologies, depending on their virality. Finally, we identify differences in multiplexing by gender and connectedness. These have implications for inequality in diffusion-mediated outcomes such as access to information and adherence to norms.

Suggested Citation

  • Arun G. Chandrasekhar & Vasu Chaudhary & Benjamin Golub & Matthew O. Jackson, 2024. "Multiplexing in Networks and Diffusion," Papers 2412.11957, arXiv.org.
  • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2412.11957
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2412.11957
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    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:arx:papers:2412.11957. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.