We study a model of network formation and start-up financing with endogenous entrepreneurial type distribution. A hub firm admits members to its network based on signals about entrepreneurs' types. Network membership is observable, which allows lenders to offer different interest rates to...

Merchant guilds have been portrayed as social networks that generated beneficial social capital by sustaining shared norms, effectively transmitting information, and successfully undertaking collective action. This social capital, it is claimed, benefited society as a whole by enabling rulers to...

"We develop a model of information exchange through communication and investigate its implications for information aggregation in large societies. An underlying state determines payoffs from different actions. Agents decide which others to form a costly communication link with incurring the...