The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence: the effect of misperceived signalling in a network formation process
Social and economic networks are becoming increasingly popular in the last ten years, because of both the application of game theory to the network formation processes4, and the study of stochastic processes that fit the statistical properties of real world social networks.5 In the very recent years there have also been attempts to combine the contribution of these two streams of research, trying to find strategic models whose equilibria resemble the empirical data.6 A well known source of debate in the game theoretical approach is the incompatibility between stability and efficiency: in most of the models Nash equilibria are actually not the network architectures that maximize the overall …
Marginal contribution, reciprocity and equity in segregated groups: Bounded rationality and selforganization in social networks
We study the formation of social networks that are based on local interaction and simple rule following. Agents evaluate the profitability of link formation on the basis of the Myerson-Shapley principle that payoffs come from the marginal contribution they make to coalitions. The NP-hard problem associated with the Myerson-Shapley value is replaced by a boundedly rational 'spatially' myopic process. Agents consider payoffs from direct links with their neighbours (level 1), which can include indirect payoffs from neighbours' neighbours (level 2) and up to M-levels that are far from global. Agents dynamically break away from the neighbour to whom they make the least marginal contribution. Com…