IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/etbull/v2y2014i1d10.1007_s40505-013-0025-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Meeting friends of friends and homophily: a complementarity

Author

Listed:
  • Adrien Vigier

    (University of Oslo)

Abstract

I explore the effects of homophily on the formation of social networks. When individuals are homophilous, friends of friends are likely to share tastes and hence also likely to form new friendships. In the context of homophily, the social network dynamics of meeting friends of friends thus acts as directed search, and a greater number of meetings result in links being formed. However, since it exacerbates preferential attachment—whereby high degree nodes attract new links—homophily also causes more unequal distributions of links. Thus while homophily normally improves social welfare, for a given average number of links formed it in fact affects welfare negatively.

Suggested Citation

  • Adrien Vigier, 2014. "Meeting friends of friends and homophily: a complementarity," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 2(1), pages 45-52, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:etbull:v:2:y:2014:i:1:d:10.1007_s40505-013-0025-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s40505-013-0025-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40505-013-0025-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s40505-013-0025-1?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. Vega-Redondo,Fernando, 2007. "Complex Social Networks," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521857406, January.
    2. 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.
    3. Benjamin Golub & Matthew O. Jackson, 2012. "How Homophily Affects the Speed of Learning and Best-Response Dynamics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(3), pages 1287-1338.
    4. Vega-Redondo,Fernando, 2007. "Complex Social Networks," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521674096, January.
    5. 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. , David, 2016. "The formation of networks with local spillovers and limited observability," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(3), September.

    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, 2014. "Networks in the Understanding of Economic Behaviors," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(4), pages 3-22, Fall.
    2. de Marti, Joan & Zenou, Yves, 2009. "Social Networks," Working Paper Series 816, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    3. Currarini, Sergio & Matheson, Jesse & Vega-Redondo, Fernando, 2016. "A simple model of homophily in social networks," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 18-39.
    4. Jackson, Matthew O. & Zenou, Yves, 2015. "Games on Networks," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    5. Vigier, A., 2008. "Globalization, Education, and the Topology of Social Networks," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0851, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    6. 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.
    7. Mira Frick & Ryota Iijima & Yuhta Ishii, 2018. "Dispersed Behavior and Perceptions in Assortative Societies," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2128, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    8. Hellmann, Tim & Staudigl, Mathias, 2014. "Evolution of social networks," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 234(3), pages 583-596.
    9. Panebianco, Fabrizio & Verdier, Thierry, 2017. "Paternalism, homophily and cultural transmission in random networks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 155-176.
    10. López-Pintado, Dunia, 2012. "Influence networks," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 776-787.
    11. Facundo Albornoz & Antonio Cabrales & Esther Hauk, 2019. "Occupational Choice with Endogenous Spillovers," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(621), pages 1953-1970.
    12. Fosco, Constanza & Mengel, Friederike, 2011. "Cooperation through imitation and exclusion in networks," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 641-658, May.
    13. Angelo Antoci & Alexia Delfino & Fabio Paglieri & Fabrizio Panebianco & Fabio Sabatini, 2016. "Civility vs. Incivility in Online Social Interactions: An Evolutionary Approach," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(11), pages 1-17, November.
    14. Zenou, Yves, 2011. "Spatial versus Social Mismatch: The Strength of Weak Ties," Research Papers in Economics 2011:5, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    15. Acemoglu, Daron & Malekian, Azarakhsh & Ozdaglar, Asu, 2016. "Network security and contagion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 536-585.
    16. Tabasso, Nicole, 2019. "Diffusion of multiple information: On information resilience and the power of segregation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 219-240.
    17. Pin, Paolo, 2011. "Eight degrees of separation," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 259-270, September.
    18. Antonio Cabrales & Antoni Calvó-Armengol & Yves Zenou, 2009. "Social Interactions and Spillovers: Incentives,Segregation and Topology," Working Papers 2009-06, FEDEA.
    19. Margherita Comola, 2010. "The network structure of mutual support links: Evidence from rural Tanzania," PSE Working Papers halshs-00585968, HAL.
    20. Tadao Hoshino & Daichi Shimamoto & Yasuyuki Todo, 2020. "Accounting for Heterogeneity in Network Formation Behaviour: An Application to Vietnamese SMEs," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 82(5), pages 1042-1067, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social networks; Network formation; Homophily;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation
    • A14 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Sociology of Economics
    • C71 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Cooperative Games
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games

    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:spr:etbull:v:2:y:2014:i:1:d:10.1007_s40505-013-0025-1. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.