This paper looks at the history of money and its modern form from a scientific and mathematical point of view. The approach here is to emphasize simplicity. A straightforward model and algebraic formula for a large economy analogous to the ideal gas law of thermodynamics is proposed. It may be...

We develop a model where agents obtain information about job opportunities through an explicitly modeled network of social contacts. We show that an improvement in the employment status of either an agent's direct or indirect contacts leads to an increase in the agent's employment probability...

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 examine a new class of games, which we call social games, where players not only choose strategies but also choose with whom they play. A group of players who are dissatisfied with the play of their current partners can join together and play a new equilibrium. This imposes new refinements on...

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 analyzes the data from a questionnaire mailed to professors in the Economics' departments of the Spanish public universities about their working habits as to information sources used and journals where they used to publish. Responses received indicate two main dimensions of journals'...

We examine a simple economic model of network formation where agents benefit from indirect relationships. We show that small-world features - -- short path lengths between nodes together with highly clustered link structures --- necessarily emerge for a wide set of parameters.

Economic organization of the imaginary worlds depicted in popular literary works may be viewed as a mirror to public opinion on the economic organization of life. If a book becomes a best-seller, it is because the book conveys messages, feelings, and events the readers can relate to. In other...

We offer the first direct evidence of an implicit contract in a goods market. The evidence we offer comes from the market for Coca-Cola. We demonstrate that the Coca-Cola Company left a substantial amount of written evidence of its implicit contract with its consumers—a very explicit form of...