Social Status in Networks

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Immorlica, Nicole; Kranton, Rachel; Manea, Mihai; Stoddard, Greg
• 署名单位: Microsoft; Duke University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Northwestern University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MICROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7669
• DOI: 10.1257/mic.20160082
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 1-30
• 关键词: field experiment; relative income; public-goods; neighbors; utility

摘要

We study social comparisons and status seeking in an interconnected society. Individuals take costly actions that have direct benefits and also confer social status. A new measure of interconnectedness-cohesion-captures the intensity of incentives for seeking status. Equilibria stratify players into social classes, with each class's action pinned down by cohesion. A network decomposition algorithm characterizes the highest (and most inefficient) equilibrium. Members of the largest maximally cohesive set form the highest class. Alternatively, players not belonging to sets more cohesive than the set of all nodes constitute the lowest class. Intermediate classes are identified by iterating a cohesion operator. We also characterize networks that accommodate multiple-class equilibria.