Following the Internet’s widespread adoption, much economic work has studied ‘online platforms’: firms that mainly interact with consumers in cyberspace. This article surveys such work, focusing on the ways in which traditional economic models have been adapted to incorporate...

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...

We study how students’ social networks emerge by documenting systematic patterns in the process of friendship formation of incoming students; these students all start out in a new environment and thus jointly create a new social network. As a specific novelty, we consider cooperativeness, time...

Who becomes a top politician in China? We focus on provincial leaders, a pool of candidates for top political office, and examine how their chance of being promoted depends on performance - measured by provincial economic growth - and connections with top politicians - measured by past joint...

We examine a randomized trial that allows separate identification of peer screening and enforcement of credit contracts. A South African microlender offered half its clients a bonus for referring a friend who repaid a loan. For the remaining clients, the bonus was conditional on loan approval....

Does the pattern of social connections between individuals matter for macroeconomic outcomes? If so, how does this effect operate and how big is it? Using network analysis tools, we explore how different social structures affect technology diffusion and thereby a country’s rate of...

This paper delves into the factors which determine the attractiveness of regions in Europe for migrants. Contrary to the literature on the US which has increasingly focused on the role of amenities, existing research in Europe tends to highlight the predominance of economic conditions as the...

We provide an overview on networks in economics. We first look at the theoretical aspects of network economics using a game-theoretical approach. We derive some results on games on networks and network formation. We also study what happens when agents choose both links and actions. We then...

In this paper, we investigate the impact of peers on own outcomes where all agents embedded in a network choose more than one activity. We develop a simple network model that illustrates these issues. We differentiate between the ‘seemingly unrelated’ simultaneous equations model where...

In this chapter, we provide an overview of research on neighborhoods and social networks and their role in shaping behavior and economic outcomes. We include discussion of empirical and theoretical analyses of the role of neighborhoods and social networks in crime, education and labor-market...