IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ris/fcnwpa/2010_003.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Structure of Online Consumer Communication Networks

Author

Listed:
  • Harmsen - van Hout, Marjolein J.W.

    (E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN))

  • Herings, P. Jean-Jacques

    (Department of Economics, School of Business and Economics, Maastricht University)

  • Dellaert, Benedict G.C.

    (Department of Business Economics / Marketing Section, Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Abstract

We analyze the structure of bilateral communication links among consumers in virtual communities by a game-theoretic model of network formation. First, link specificity is incorporated, meaning that the more direct links somebody has to maintain with others, the less she is able to specify her attention per link, so that the value of her links decreases. Second, a distinction is made between the social and informational value from communication, where informational value is transferable via indirect links, whereas social value is not. We characterize the set of pairwise stable structures in the case with only social value to indicate the separate impact of link specificity and demonstrate that it includes a wide range of non-standard architectures under large link specificity and particular combinations of fully connected components under low link specificity. In the case with both social and informational value, the joint effect of link specificity and value transferability is shown to reduce the pairwise stable set to particular fragmented architectures under large link specificity or rather to the complete network under small link specificity.

Suggested Citation

  • Harmsen - van Hout, Marjolein J.W. & Herings, P. Jean-Jacques & Dellaert, Benedict G.C., 2010. "The Structure of Online Consumer Communication Networks," FCN Working Papers 3/2010, E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN).
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:fcnwpa:2010_003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.fcn.eonerc.rwth-aachen.de/global/show_document.asp?id=aaaaaaaaaagvvcu
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Chrysanthos Dellarocas, 2003. "The Digitization of Word of Mouth: Promise and Challenges of Online Feedback Mechanisms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(10), pages 1407-1424, October.
    3. Venkatesh Bala & Sanjeev Goyal, 2000. "A Noncooperative Model of Network Formation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(5), pages 1181-1230, September.
    4. Hans Haller & Sudipta Sarangi, 2003. "Nash Networks with Heterogeneous Agents," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 337, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Qin, Cheng-Zhong, 1996. "Endogenous Formation of Cooperation Structures," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 218-226, April.
    6. Dellarocas, Chrysanthos, 2003. "The Digitization of Word-of-mouth: Promise and Challenges of Online Feedback Mechanisms," Working papers 4296-03, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    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. Bellmann, Enno & Lang, Joachim & Madlener, Reinhard, 2010. "Cost Evaluation of Credit Risk Securitization in the Electricity Industry: Credit Default Acceptance vs. Margining Costs," FCN Working Papers 13/2010, E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN), revised May 2011.
    2. Dergiades, Theologos & Madlener, Reinhard & Christofidou, Georgia, 2018. "The nexus between natural gas spot and futures prices at NYMEX: Do weather shocks and non-linear causality in low frequencies matter?," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 18(C), pages 1-1.
    3. Harmsen - van Hout, Marjolein J.W. & Herings, P. Jean-Jacques & Dellaert, Benedict G.C., 2013. "Communication network formation with link specificity and value transferability," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 229(1), pages 199-211.
    4. Melchior, Tobias & Madlener, Reinhard, 2012. "Economic evaluation of IGCC plants with hot gas cleaning," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 170-184.
    5. Achtnicht, Martin, 2010. "Do environmental benefits matter? A choice experiment among house owners in Germany," ZEW Discussion Papers 10-094, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    6. Bernstein, Ronald & Madlener, Reinhard, 2011. "Responsiveness of Residential Electricity Demand in OECD Countries: A Panel Cointegation and Causality Analysis," FCN Working Papers 8/2011, E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN).
    7. Sorda, Giovanni & Sunak, Yasin & Madlener, Reinhard, 2011. "A Spatial MAS Simulation to Evaluate the Promotion of Electricity from Agricultural Biogas Plants in Germany," FCN Working Papers 1/2011, E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN), revised Oct 2012.
    8. Michelsen, Carl Christian & Madlener, Reinhard, 2011. "Homeowners' Preferences for Adopting Residential Heating Systems: A Discrete Choice Analysis for Germany," FCN Working Papers 9/2011, E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN).
    9. Gampert, Markus & Madlener, Reinhard, 2011. "Pan-European management of electricity portfolios: Risks and opportunities of contract bundling," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 2855-2865, May.
    10. Rohlfs, Wilko & Madlener, Reinhard, 2013. "Challenges in the Evaluation of Ultra-Long-Lived Projects: Risk Premia for Projects with Eternal Returns or Costs," FCN Working Papers 13/2013, E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN).
    11. Rohlfs, Wilko & Madlener, Reinhard, 2011. "Multi-Commodity Real Options Analysis of Power Plant Investments: Discounting Endogenous Risk Structures," FCN Working Papers 22/2011, E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN).
    12. Alexia Gaudeul & Caterina Giannetti, 2011. "The role of reciprocation in social network formation, with an application to blogging," Jena Economics Research Papers 2011-015, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    13. Kraas, Birk & Schroedter-Homscheidt, Marion & Pulvermüller, Benedikt & Madlener, Reinhard, 2011. "Economic Assessment of a Concentrating Solar Power Forecasting System for Participation in the Spanish Electricity Market," FCN Working Papers 12/2011, E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN).
    14. Lohwasser, Richard & Madlener, Reinhard, 2013. "Relating R&D and investment policies to CCS market diffusion through two-factor learning," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 439-452.
    15. Harmsen - van Hout, Marjolein & Ghosh, Gaurav & Madlener, Reinhard, 2013. "The Impact of Green Framing on Consumers’ Valuations of Energy-Saving Measures," FCN Working Papers 7/2013, E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN).
    16. Ernst, Christian-Simon & Hackbarth, André & Madlener, Reinhard & Lunz, Benedikt & Sauer, Dirk Uwe & Eckstein, Lutz, 2010. "Battery Sizing for Serial Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles: A Model-Based Economic Analysis for Germany," FCN Working Papers 14/2010, E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN), revised Jun 2011.
    17. Harmsen - van Hout, Marjolein & Ghosh, Gaurav & Madlener, Reinhard, 2013. "An Evaluation of Attribute Anchoring Bias in a Choice Experimental Setting," FCN Working Papers 6/2013, E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN).
    18. Rohlfs, Wilko & Madlener, Reinhard, 2010. "Cost Effectiveness of Carbon Capture-Ready Coal Power Plants with Delayed Retrofit," FCN Working Papers 8/2010, E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN), revised Dec 2010.

    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. Rajgopal Kannan & Lydia Ray & Sudipta Sarangi, 2007. "The structure of information networks," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 30(1), pages 119-134, January.
    2. Slikker, M. & Gilles, R.P. & Norde, H.W. & Tijs, S.H., 2000. "Directed Communication Networks," Discussion Paper 2000-84, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    3. Gilles, R.P. & Sarangi, S., 2003. "The Role of Trust in Costly Network Formation," Discussion Paper 2003-53, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    4. Lasse Kliemann, 2011. "The Price of Anarchy for Network Formation in an Adversary Model," Games, MDPI, vol. 2(3), pages 1-31, August.
    5. Balmaceda, Felipe & Escobar, Juan F., 2017. "Trust in cohesive communities," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 289-318.
    6. Gilles, Robert P. & Chakrabarti, Subhadip & Sarangi, Sudipta, 2012. "Nash equilibria of network formation games under consent," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 159-165.
    7. Pascal Billand & Christophe Bravard & Sudipta Sarangi, 2008. "Existence of Nash networks in one-way flow models," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 37(3), pages 491-507, December.
    8. Jun, Tackseung & Kim, Jeong-Yoo, 2007. "Connectivity, stability and efficiency in a network as an information flow," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 314-331, May.
    9. Juan Larrosa & Fernando Tohme, 2003. "Network Formation with Heterogenous Agents," Microeconomics 0301002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Slikker, M. & Gilles, R.P. & Norde, H.W. & Tijs, S.H., 2000. "Directed Communication Networks," Other publications TiSEM 00f2df6e-3a8e-4ed3-84cf-2, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    11. Yangbo Song & Mihaela Schaar, 2015. "Dynamic network formation with incomplete information," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 59(2), pages 301-331, June.
    12. Sudipta Sarangi & Pascal Billand & Christophe Bravard, 2006. "Heterogeneity in Nash Networks," Departmental Working Papers 2006-18, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.
    13. Krishnan, P. & Sciubba, E., 2004. "Links and Architecture in Village Networks (previously: Endogenous Network Formation and Informal Institutions in Village Economies)," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0462, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    14. Matthew O. Jackson, 2002. "The Stability and Efficiency of Economic and Social Networks," Microeconomics 0211011, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Filippo Vergara Caffarelli, 2009. "Networks with decreasing returns to linking," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 734, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    16. Belleflamme,Paul & Peitz,Martin, 2015. "Industrial Organization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107687899, September.
    17. Michael Kosfeld, "undated". "Network Experiments," IEW - Working Papers 152, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    18. Alessio D'Ignazio & Emanuele Giovannetti, 2006. "From Exogenous To Endogenous Economic Networks: Internet Applications," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(5), pages 757-796, December.
    19. Falk Armin & Kosfeld Michael, 2012. "It's all about Connections: Evidence on Network Formation," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(3), pages 1-36, September.
    20. Yaron Leitner, 2004. "Financial networks: contagion, commitment, and private sector bailouts," Working Papers 02-9, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumers; Virtual Communities; Bilateral Communication Links; Social vs. Informational Value; Specificity; Transferability; Network Formation; Game Theory;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A14 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Sociology of Economics
    • C79 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Other
    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation
    • M31 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Marketing

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ris:fcnwpa:2010_003. 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: Hendrik Schmitz (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fceonde.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.