Recent research in industrial organisation has investigated the essential place that middlemen have in the networks that make up our global economy. In this paper we attempt to understand how such middlemen compete with each other through a game theoretic analysis using novel techniques from...

A network payoff function assigns a utility to all participants in a (social) network. In this paper we discuss properties of such network payoff functions that guarantee the existence of certain types of pairwise stable networks and the convergence of certain network formation processes. In...

Cooperative Game Theory -- The Core of a Cooperative Game -- Axiomatic Value Theory -- The Cooperative Potential -- Directed Communication Networks -- Cooperative Theories of Hierarchical Organizations

We introduce a spatial cost topology in thenetwork formation model analyzed by Jackson andWolinsky, Journal of Economic Theory 71 (1996), 44--74. This cost topology mightrepresent geographical, social, or individualdifferences. It describes variable costs ofestablishing social network...

This dissertation attempts to construct a theory which states that forms of enterprise are determined to a large extent by potential market failure. In the four independent, but closely interrelated chapters, I derive this hypothesis through theoretical reasoning, and suppose it by referring to...