Positional concerns and social network structure: An experiment

Armenak Antinyan, Gergely Horváth*, Mofei Jia

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We experimentally study the positional concerns of individuals embedded in social networks. In the game, individuals compete for positional advantage with their direct neighbors by purchasing a positional good. The Nash equilibrium consumption is determined by the Katz-Bonacich centrality of the individual's network position, while the efficient outcome requires a lower consumption level. For most network positions, the gameplay converged to the Nash equilibrium, except for local centers that consumed less of the positional good than the Nash prediction. Despite this, the consumption of the positional good increased in the individual's centrality. The evolution of the gameplay was explained by the myopic best-response dynamics model.

Original languageEnglish
Article number103547
JournalEuropean Economic Review
Volume129
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2020

Keywords

  • Katz-Bonacich centrality
  • Learning
  • Positional concerns
  • Positional good
  • Social Networks

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