Can we identify the members of a community who are best- placed to diffuse information simply by asking a random sample of in- dividuals? We show that boundedly-rational individuals can, simply by tracking sources of gossip, identify those who are most central in a network according to...

We seed noisy information to members of a real-world social network to study how information diffusion and information aggregation jointly shape social learning. Our environment features substantial social learning. We show that learning occurs via diffusion which is highly imperfect: signals...

We study the earnings structure and the equilibrium assignment of workers when they exert intra-firm spillovers on each other. We allow for arbitrary spillovers provided output depends on some aggregate index of workers' skill. Despite the possibility of increasing returns to skills, equilibrium...

We describe a pair of subadditivity tests that can be used to evaluate the technological feasibility of separating a vertically integrated network monopoly into a common infrastructure component and competing operating components. We implement the tests with a Generalized McFadden cost function...

We use the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to show that personal relationships which individuals maintain for non-economic reasons can be an important determinant of regional economic growth. We show that West German households who have social ties to East Germany in 1989 experience a persistent...