This paper proposes a revealed preference test of network formation models. Specifically, I consider network formation models where agents are (1) strategic, (2) externalities are confined to within an agent’s k-neighborhood, where k can be varied. I show that this model can be tested...

This paper uses a randomized experiment to study whether social networks affect vote choice. In a fiercely contested presidential election in Peru with ten candidates, only 35% of subjects were aware how their friends intended to vote. We compare people who were randomly informed how one of...

This paper studies the competition between firms for influencers in a network. Firms spend effort to convince influencers to recommend their products. The analysis identifies the offensive and defensive roles of spending on influencers. The value of an influencer only depends on the in-degree...

In this paper, we examine how a seller sells a product/service with a positive consumption externality, and customers are uncertain about the product's/service's value. Because early adopters learn this value, we consider the customers' intrinsic signaling incentives and positive feedback...

We model consumer social networks as information collection media and examine two major issues: first, how consumers construct product fit signals based on product feedbacks collected from their social connections to assist with their purchase decisions, and second, how a retailer can benefit...

Many video ads are designed to go viral, so that the total number of views they receive depends on customers sharing the ads with their friends. This paper explores the relationship between achieving this endogenous reach and the effectiveness of the ad at persuading a consumer to purchase or...

It has been conjectured that the peer-based recommendations associated with electronic commerce lead to a redistribution of demand from popular products or "blockbusters" to less popular or "niche" products, and that electronic markets will therefore be characterized by a "long tail" of demand...

This paper examines social networks' incentives to establish compatibility under fee and ad-sponsored business models. I analyze the competition between two social networks and show that compatibility is only possible when the two networks are ad-sponsored. I also find that even when both...

This paper studies peer-to-peer (p2p) lending on the Internet. Prosper.com, the first p2p lending website in the US, matches individual lenders and borrowers for unsecured consumer loans. Using transaction data from June 1, 2006 to July 31, 2008, we examine what information problems exist on...

Ballester, Calvo-Armengol, and Zenou (2006, Econometrica, 74/5, pp. 1403-17) show that in a network game with local payoff complementarities, together with global uniform payoff substitutability and own concavity effects, the intercentrality measure identifies the key player - a player who, once...