The Diffusion of Innovations in Social Networks.
We consider processes in which new technologies and forms of behavior are transmitted through social and geographic networks. Agents adopt behaviors based on a combination of their inherent payoff and their local popularity (the number of neighbors who have adopted them) subject to some random error...
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| Format: | Working paper |
| Language: | English |
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Department of Economics (Johns Hopkins University)
2000
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| Summary: | We consider processes in which new technologies and forms of behavior are transmitted through social and geographic networks. Agents adopt behaviors based on a combination of their inherent payoff and their local popularity (the number of neighbors who have adopted them) subject to some random error. We characterize the long-run dynamics of such processes in terms of the geometry of the network, but without placing a priori restrictions on the network structure. When agents interact in sufficiently small, close-knit groups, the expected waiting time until almost everyone is playing the stochastically stable equilibrium is bounded above independently of the number of agents and independently of the initial state. |
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