This paper investigates opinion dynamics and social influence in directed communication networks. We study the theoretical properties of a boundedly rational model of opinion formation in which individuals aggregate the information they receive from their neighbors by using weights that are a...

This paper provides a formal characterization of the process of rational learning in social networks. Agents receive initial private information and select an action out of a choice set under uncertainty in each of infinitely many periods, observing the history of choices of their neighbors....

We examine how three different communication processes operating through social networks are affected by homophily - the tendency of individuals to associate with others similar to themselves. Homophily has no effect if messages are broadcast or sent via shortest paths; only connection density...

We study learning and influence in a setting where agents communicate according to an arbitrary social network and naïvely update their beliefs by repeatedly taking weighted averages of their neighbors' opinions. A focus is on conditions under which beliefs of all agents in large societies...

We study how friendship shapes students' political opinions in a natural experiment. We use the indicator whether two students were exogenously assigned to a short-term "integration group", unrelated to scholar activities and dissolved before the school year, as instrumental variable for their...

This paper investigates opinion dynamics and social influence in directed communication networks. We study the theoretical properties of a boundedly rational model of opinion formation in which individuals aggregate the information they receive from their neighbors by using weights that are a...

We develop and estimate an equilibrium model of study time choices of students on a social network. We examine how network structure interacts with student characteristics to affect academic achievement. Due to data limitations, few papers examine the mechanisms through which peer effects...