IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/netsci/v1y2013i02p213-225_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Commentary: Measuring the shape of degree distributions

Author

Listed:
  • BADHAM, JENNIFER M.

Abstract

Degree distribution is a fundamental property of networks. While mean degree provides a standard measure of scale, there are several commonly used shape measures. Widespread use of a single shape measure would enable comparisons between networks and facilitate investigations about the relationship between degree distribution properties and other network features. This paper describes five candidate measures of heterogeneity and recommends the Gini coefficient. It has theoretical advantages over many of the previously proposed measures, is meaningful for the broad range of distribution shapes seen in different types of networks, and has several accessible interpretations. While this paper focuses on degree, the distribution of other node-based network properties could also be described with Gini coefficients.

Suggested Citation

  • Badham, Jennifer M., 2013. "Commentary: Measuring the shape of degree distributions," Network Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(2), pages 213-225, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:netsci:v:1:y:2013:i:02:p:213-225_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2050124213000106/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Junwook Chi, 2024. "Tourism development and income inequality in OECD countries: New insights from method of moments quantile regression," Tourism Economics, , vol. 30(3), pages 767-784, May.
    2. Joshua Becker & Abdullah Almaatouq & EmH{o}ke-'Agnes Horv'at, 2020. "Network Structures of Collective Intelligence: The Contingent Benefits of Group Discussion," Papers 2009.07202, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2021.

    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:cup:netsci:v:1:y:2013:i:02:p:213-225_00. 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/nws .

    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.