<p>Because the notion of pairwise stability is so important in the theory of network formation and equilibrium, there has been a few attempts to test it in experimental setups. I know at least two papers:</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.ucllouvain.be/cps/ucl/doc/core/documents/coredp2011_7web.pdf" rel="nofollow">Myopic or farsighted? An experiment on network formation</a>, by Georg KIRCHSTEIGER1, Marco MANTOVANI, Ana MAULEON and Vincent VANNETELBOSCH.</li>
<li><a href="http://experiments.cob.calpoly.edu/seminars/fafchamps.pdf" rel="nofollow">Departures from Best Response in Market-like Link Formation: An experimental study</a>, by Margherita Comola and Marcel Fafchamps.</li>
</ul>

<p>The first is a discussion paper. <strong>A word of warning regarding the second</strong> : the version of the paper that is linked is very much a draft. You might want to have a look to get an idea of what the authors plan on doing, but don't rely on it too much. I attended a talk where Fafchamps presented the paper this week, and he told us that <strong>they initially got the wrong data from their experiment</strong>. They only realized it rather recently and had to revise the whole paper. Because the linked draft is from February 2014, there are chances it is still based on the the old data (I did not read it).</p>

<p>For some field experiments on networks in development economics, you might want to have a look at other papers by Fafchamps : 
<a href="http://web.stanford.edu/~fafchamp/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://web.stanford.edu/~fafchamp/index.html</a>. I am not sure these explicitly test equilibrium concepts though, but they might.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-12-25T13:05:13.407Z
2014-12-25T13:20:31.937Z
2014-12-25T13:20:31.937Z
Martin Van der Linden
<p>There was recently a seminar at Cambridge university on 'Network Econometrics'. The list of speakers and their papers should still be on the website. If they aren't then I can email you a scanned copy. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-06-27T09:52:00.807Z
2015-06-27T10:31:23.807Z
2015-06-27T10:31:23.807Z
Sikandar Singh Soin
<p>A couple of recent empirical works on networks:</p>

<ul>
<li>Graham, Bryan S. “Methods of Identification in Social Networks.” NBER Working Paper. National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, 2014. <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/20414.html" rel="nofollow">https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/20414.html</a>.</li>
<li>Banerjee, Abhijit, Arun G. Chandrasekhar, Esther Duflo, and Matthew O. Jackson. “Gossip: Identifying Central Individuals in a Social Network.” NBER Working Paper. National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, 2014. <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/20422.html" rel="nofollow">https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/20422.html</a>.</li>
</ul>

<p>The first paper is a very good overview of both models and real data.</p>

<p>There're many empirical papers, in fact. Even the US special services made research on networks. In one case, they tried to identify key officials in the Iran government. In another, they used network structure for dealing with insurgents in Afghanistan.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-06-27T16:00:22.090Z
2015-06-27T16:00:22.090Z
Anton Tarasenko
<p>There have been a number of papers in the literature (pioneered by Sanjeev Goyal, Jackson, Kranton, amongst others) emphasising the role and importance of network structure in economics, the equilibrium arising therein and the relationship between the topology and other graph properties and the equilibrium.</p>

<p>Such networks arise in a number of cases, for example, research collaboration, social networks, crime networks, etc. My question is what published empirical studies have tested the hypothesis presented by the theory? Do such studies also find that the graph properties are critical, as predicted by the theory? Or is network effects in economics a theory-only area?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-12-04T05:08:13.963Z
There's some market microstructure stuff that looks like this. I tried to find it earlier but was unsuccessful. I seem to remember one on network models of over the counter markets applied to federal funds rate if you want to poke around yourself. those networks are for both info AND trade which makes them easier to quantify.
jayk
<microeconomics><networks>
Empirical studies on network equilibria
Bravo
# Empirical studies on network equilibria

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-12-03)

There have been a number of papers in the literature (pioneered by Sanjeev Goyal, Jackson, Kranton, amongst others) emphasising the role and importance of network structure in economics, the equilibrium arising therein and the relationship between the topology and other graph properties and the equilibrium.

Such networks arise in a number of cases, for example, research collaboration, social networks, crime networks, etc. My question is what published empirical studies have tested the hypothesis presented by the theory? Do such studies also find that the graph properties are critical, as predicted by the theory? Or is network effects in economics a theory-only area?

**Tags:** microeconomics, networks

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: There's some market microstructure stuff that looks like this. I tried to find it earlier but was unsuccessful. I seem to remember one on network models of over the counter markets applied to federal funds rate if you want to poke around yourself. those networks are for both info AND trade which makes them easier to quantify.  

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## 3 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2014-12-25. Score: 2

Because the notion of pairwise stability is so important in the theory of network formation and equilibrium, there has been a few attempts to test it in experimental setups. I know at least two papers:

* [Myopic or farsighted? An experiment on network formation](http://www.ucllouvain.be/cps/ucl/doc/core/documents/coredp2011_7web.pdf), by Georg KIRCHSTEIGER1, Marco MANTOVANI, Ana MAULEON and Vincent VANNETELBOSCH.
* [Departures from Best Response in Market-like Link Formation: An experimental study](http://experiments.cob.calpoly.edu/seminars/fafchamps.pdf), by Margherita Comola and Marcel Fafchamps.

The first is a discussion paper. **A word of warning regarding the second** : the version of the paper that is linked is very much a draft. You might want to have a look to get an idea of what the authors plan on doing, but don't rely on it too much. I attended a talk where Fafchamps presented the paper this week, and he told us that **they initially got the wrong data from their experiment**. They only realized it rather recently and had to revise the whole paper. Because the linked draft is from February 2014, there are chances it is still based on the the old data (I did not read it).

For some field experiments on networks in development economics, you might want to have a look at other papers by Fafchamps :
<http://web.stanford.edu/~fafchamp/index.html>. I am not sure these explicitly test equilibrium concepts though, but they might.


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### Answer by username_3 on 2015-06-27. Score: 0

There was recently a seminar at Cambridge university on 'Network Econometrics'. The list of speakers and their papers should still be on the website. If they aren't then I can email you a scanned copy.


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### Answer by username_4 on 2015-06-27. Score: 0

A couple of recent empirical works on networks:

* Graham, Bryan S. “Methods of Identification in Social Networks.” NBER Working Paper. National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, 2014. <https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/20414.html>.
* Banerjee, Abhijit, Arun G. Chandrasekhar, Esther Duflo, and Matthew O. Jackson. “Gossip: Identifying Central Individuals in a Social Network.” NBER Working Paper. National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, 2014. <https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/20422.html>.

The first paper is a very good overview of both models and real data.

There're many empirical papers, in fact. Even the US special services made research on networks. In one case, they tried to identify key officials in the Iran government. In another, they used network structure for dealing with insurgents in Afghanistan.


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