Complex Social Networks

This 2007 book provides a systematic and self-contained account of the fast-developing theory of complex social networks. Social networks are central to the understanding of most socio-economic phenomena in the modern world. The classical approach to studying them relies on a methodology that abstracts from their size and complexity. In contrast, the approach taken in this book keeps complexity at the core, whilst integrating it with the incentive considerations that are preeminent in traditional economic analysis. The treatment starts with a detailed discussion of the basic models that act as ‘benchmarks’ for the complex-network literature: random networks, small worlds, and scale-free networks, before studying three different forces that underlie almost all network phenomena in social contexts: diffusion, search, and play. Finally, these forces are combined into a unified framework that is brought to bear on the issue of network formation and the coevolution of agents’ behaviour and their pattern of interaction.