This paper studies the formation of networks among individuals. The focus is on the compatibility of overall societal welfare with individual incentives to form and sever links. The paper reviews and synthesizes some previous results on the subject, and also provides new results on the existence...

We analyze the formation of networks among individuals. In particular, we examine the existence of networks that are stable against changes in links by any coalition of individuals. We show that to investigate the existence of such strongly stable networks one can restrict focus on a...

We present a model of network formation where entering nodes find other nodes to link to both completely at random and through search of the neighborhoods of these randomly met nodes. We show that this model exhibits the full spectrum of features that have been found to characterize large...

This paper presents a model of local network effects in which agents connected in a social network each value adoption by a heterogeneous subset of others, and have incomplete information about the structure and strength of adoption complementarities between all other agents. I show that the...

I survey the recent literature on the formation of networks. I provide definitions of network games, a number of examples of models from the literature, and discuss some of what is known about the (in)compatibility of overall societal welfare with individual incentives to form and sever links.

A new model of strategic network formation is developed and analyzed, where an agent's investment in links is nonspecific. The model comprises a large class of games which are both potential and super- or submodular games. We obtain comparative statics results for Nash equilibria with respect to...

Strategic games are considered where the players derive their utilities from participation in certain 'processes.' Two subclasses consisting exclusively of potential games are singled out. In the first, players choose where to participate, but there is a unique way of participation, the same for...

We consider Salim Rashid's asymptotic version of David Schmeidler's theorem on the purification of Nash equilibria. We show that, in contrast to what is stated, players' payoff functions have to be selected from an equicontinuous family in order for Rashid's theorem to hold. That is, a bound on...

We consider an asymptotic version of Mas-Colell's theorem on the existence of pure strategy Nash equilibria in large games. Our result states that, if players' payoff functions are selected from an equicontinuous family, then all sufficiently large games have an epsilon - pure, epsilon -...

We show that a strategy is a Nash equilibrium in a game with a continuum of players if and only if there exists a sequence of finite games such that its restriction is an $\varepsilon_n$-equilibria, with $\varepsilon_n$ converging to zero. In our characterization, the sequence of finite games...