This paper models the dynamic process through which a large society may succeed in building up its "social capital" by establishing a stable and dense pattern of interaction among its members. In the model, agents interact according to a collection of infinitely repeated Prisoner's Dilemmas...

A non-cooperative model of network formation is developed. Agents form links with others based on the cost of the link and its assessed benefit. Link formation is one-sided, i.e., agents can initiate links with other agents without their consent, provided the agent forming the link makes the...

Workers are embedded within a network of social relationships and can communicate through word-of-mouth. They can find a job either directly or through personal contacts. From this micro scenario, we derive an aggregate matching function that has the standard properties but fails to be...

We analyze information and knowledge transfer in a sample of 16 German regional innovation networks with almost 300 firms and research organizations involved. The results indicate that strong ties are more beneficial for the exchange of knowledge and information than weak ties. Moreover, our...

We revisit the economic models of social learning by assuming that individuals update their beliefs in a non-Bayesian way. Individuals either overweigh or underweigh (in Bayesian terms) their private information relative to the public information revealed by the decisions of others and each...

This paper studies an evolutionary model of network formation with endogenous decay, in which agents benefit both from direct and indirect connections. In addition to forming (costly) links, agents choose actions for a coordination game that determines the level of decay of each link. We address...

Our study analyzes theories of learning for strategic interactions in networks. Participants played two of the 2 x 2 games used by Selten and Chmura (2008) and in the comment by Brunner, Camerer and Goeree (2009). Every participant played against four neighbors and could choose a different...

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...

Economists and sociologists disagree over markets' potential to assume functions typically performed by networks of personal connections, first among them the transmission of information. This paper begins from a model of labor markets where social ties are stronger between similar individuals...

Multiple searches for information can increase individual participation in occupational pension programs. This paper tests hypotheses derived from transaction cost theory and search theory to explain the formation of information networks on pensions. Using a dataset representative of the German...