The Economics of Networks: Interaction and Behaviours

by Patrick Cohendet (Editor), Patrick Llerena (Editor), Hubert Stahn (Editor), Gisele Umbhauer (Editor)

Overview

The economic concept of networks refers to the structure of agents' interaction as well as to the economic property of positive externalities. This book describes the economics of networks from various perspectives among which are classical approaches, methods derived from physics, theory of evolutionary games, and experimental economics. These different views shed a new light on the behaviour and interaction of economic agents, on networks and on related phenomena: e.g., emergence of stable macro structures from micro interactions, standardisation, diffusion, preservation of diversity, role of heterogeneity, local learning, surplus creation and surplus allocation. The book presents the state of the art and offers a unique opportunity to understand specific networks phenomena through different theoretical and experimental approaches.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783642722622
Publisher:	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publication date:	02/24/2012
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1998
Pages:	339
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.03(d)

Table of Contents

The economics of networks.- Interaction structure: the role of asymmetries.- Irreversibility, diversity and stability.- Outline of the book.- I Interaction and Macro-Struture: an Overview.- 1 Economies with Interacting Agents.- 2 Spatial Interactions in Dynamic Decentralised Economies: a Review.- 3 Network, Interactions between Economic Agents and Irreversibilities: the Case of the Choice among Competing Technologies.- 4 Rationality and Heterogeneity in Shastic Aggregation Models.- II Local Interaction, Learning and Diversity.- 5 Networks Competition under Local Interaction and Behavioral Learning.- 6 Can Neighborhood Protect Diversity.- 7 Interaction of Local Interactions: Localized Learning and Network Externalities.- 8 Evolution of Cooperation with Local Interactions and Imitation.- 9 On the Frontier: Structural Effects in a Diffusion Model based on Influence Matrixes.- III Behaviors, Externalities and the Emergence of Networks.- 10 Networks, Specialization and Trust.- 11 Network Externalities, Cost Functions and Standardization.- 12 The Emergence of Network Organizations in Processes of Technological Choice: a Viability Approach.- 13 Are more Informed Agents able to shatter Information Cascades in the Lab—.- 14 Information Externalities and Learning with Sequential Interactions.- 15 The Evolution of Imitation.