IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/oxf/wpaper/477.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Small world networks with segregation patterns and brokers

Author

Listed:
  • Edoardo Gallo

Abstract

Many social networks have the following properties: (i) a short average distance between any two individuals; (ii) a high clustering coefficient; (iii) segregation patterns; the presence of (iv) brokers and (v) hubs. (i) and (ii) define a small world network. This paper develops a strategic network formation model where agents have heterogeneous knowledge of the network: cognizant agents know the whole network, while ignorant ones are less knowledgeable. For a broad range of parameters, all pair-wise Nash (PN) networks have properties (i)-(iv). There are some PN networks with one hub. Cognizant agents have higher betweenness centrality: they are the brokers who connect different parts of the network. Ignorant agents cause the emergence of segregation patterns. The results are robust to varying the number of cognizant agents and to increasing the knowlege level of ignorant ones. An application shows the relevance of the results to assessing the welfare impact of an increase in network knowledge due to, e.g., improved access to social networking tools.

Suggested Citation

  • Edoardo Gallo, 2010. "Small world networks with segregation patterns and brokers," Economics Series Working Papers 477, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:oxf:wpaper:477
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:91c210d3-5b73-4057-a158-d0b0cf3b688e
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Network; Cognitive network; Small world; Broker; Segregation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation

    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:oxf:wpaper:477. 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: Anne Pouliquen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfeixuk.html .

    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.