| Registro completo |
| Provedor de dados: |
AgEcon
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| País: |
United States
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| Título: |
How Homophily Affects Learning and Diffusion in Networks
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| Autores: |
Golub, Benjamin
Jackson, Matthew O.
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| Data: |
2009-06-03
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| Ano: |
2009
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| Palavras-chave: |
Networks
Learning
Diffusion
Homophily
Friendships
Social Networks
Random Graphs
Mixing Time
Convergence
Speed of Learning
Speed of Convergence
Institutional and Behavioral Economics
D83
D85
I21
J15
Z13
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| Resumo: |
We examine how three different communication processes operating through social networks are affected by homophily - the tendency of individuals to associate with others similar to themselves. Homophily has no effect if messages are broadcast or sent via shortest paths; only connection density matters. In contrast, homophily substantially slows learning based on repeated averaging of neighbors' information and Markovian diffusion processes such as the Google random surfer model. Indeed, the latter processes are strongly affected by homophily but completely independent of connection density, provided this density exceeds a low threshold. We obtain these results by establishing new results on the spectra of large random graphs and relating the spectra to homophily. We conclude by checking the theoretical predictions using observed high school friendship networks from the Adolescent Health dataset.
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| Tipo: |
Working or Discussion Paper
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| Idioma: |
Inglês
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| Identificador: |
http://purl.umn.edu/50718
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| Relação: |
Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM)>Sustainable Development Papers
SD
35.2009
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| Formato: |
69
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