nep-net New Economics Papers
on Network Economics
Issue of 2024‒04‒01
seven papers chosen by
Alfonso Rosa García, Universidad de Murcia


  1. Comparison of sectoral structures between China and Japan: A network perspective By Tao Wang; Shiying Xiao; Jun Yan
  2. Weighted Myerson value for Network games By Niharika Kakoty; Surajit Borkotokey; Rajnish Kumar; Abhijit Bora
  3. The Role of Friends in the Opioid Epidemic By Effrosyni Adamopoulou; Jeremy Greenwood; Nezih Guner; Karen Kopecky
  4. Local networks and new business formation By Füner, Lena; Berger, Marius; Bersch, Johannes; Hottenrott, Hanna
  5. Women director interlocks and firm performance: Evidence from India By Shreya Biswas; Jayati Sarkar; Ekta Selarka
  6. Opinion Formation in the World Trade Network By Célestin Coquidé; José Lages; Dima Shepelyansky
  7. The fragmentation of conflict networks in North and West Africa By Olivier J. Walther; David Russell

  1. By: Tao Wang; Shiying Xiao; Jun Yan
    Abstract: Economic structure comparisons between China and Japan have long captivated development economists. To delve deeper into their sectoral differences from 1995 to 2018, we used the annual input-output tables (IOTs) of both nations to construct weighted and directed input-output networks (IONs). This facilitated deeper network analyses. Strength distributions underscored variations in inter-sector economic interactions. Weighted, directed assortativity coefficients encapsulated the homophily among connecting sectors' features. By adjusting emphasis in PageRank centrality, key sectors were identified. Community detection revealed their clustering tendencies among the sectors. As anticipated, the analysis pinpointed manufacturing as China's central sector, while Japan favored services. Yet, at a finer level of the specific sectors, both nations exhibited varied structural evolutions. Contrastingly, sectoral communities in both China and Japan demonstrated commendable stability over the examined duration.
    Date: 2024–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2402.15620&r=net
  2. By: Niharika Kakoty; Surajit Borkotokey; Rajnish Kumar; Abhijit Bora
    Abstract: We study the weighted Myerson value for Network games extending a similar concept for communication situations. Network games, unlike communication situations, treat direct and indirect links among players differently and distinguish their effects in both worth generation and allocation processes. The weighted Myerson value is an allocation rule for Network games that generalizes the Myerson value of Network games. Here, the players are assumed to have some weights measuring their capacity to form links with other players. Two characterization of the weighted Myerson value are provided. Finally, we propose a bidding mechanism to show that the weighted Myerson value is a subgame-perfect Nash equilibrium under a non-cooperative framework.
    Date: 2024–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2402.11464&r=net
  3. By: Effrosyni Adamopoulou (ZEW, University of Mannheim, and IZA); Jeremy Greenwood (University of Pennsylvania); Nezih Guner (CEMFI, Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros); Karen Kopecky (FRB Cleveland and Emory University)
    Abstract: The role of friends in the US opioid epidemic is examined. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health), adults aged 25-34 and their high school best friends are focused on. An instrumental variable technique is employed to estimate peer effects in opioid misuse. Severe injuries in the previous year are used as an instrument for opioid misuse in order to estimate the causal impact of someone misusing opioids on the probability that their best friends also misuse. The estimated peer effects are significant: Having a best friend with a reported serious injury in the previous year increases the probability of own opioid misuse by around 7 percentage points in a population where 17 percent ever misuses opioids. The effect is driven by individuals without a college degree and those who live in the same county as their best friends.
    Keywords: Opioid, peer-group effects, friends, instrumental variables, Add Health, severe injuries.
    JEL: C26 D10 I12 J11
    Date: 2024–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cmf:wpaper:wp2024_2403&r=net
  4. By: Füner, Lena; Berger, Marius; Bersch, Johannes; Hottenrott, Hanna
    Abstract: New business formation is a key driver of regional transformation and development. While we know that a region's attractiveness for new businesses depends on its resources, infrastructure, and human capital, we know little about the role of local business networks in promoting or impeding the birth of new firms. We construct local business networks connecting more than 350 million nodes consisting of managers, owners and firms using administrative data on all German businesses from 2002 to 2020. Differentiating between serial and de-novo entrepreneurs, we show a positive but decreasing relation between a region's connectedness and firm entry of serial entrepreneurs. Networks are, moreover, positively linked to firm survival. Relating our findings to a measure of ownership concentration, we show that networks provide additional explanations for regional variation in new business formations. These patterns are robust to synthetic instrumental variable estimations
    Keywords: New Firm Formation, Business Networks, Serial Entrepreneurship, RegionalDynamics, Ownership Concentration
    JEL: L14 L26 M13 O31
    Date: 2023
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:283589&r=net
  5. By: Shreya Biswas (Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, Hyderabad Campus); Jayati Sarkar (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research); Ekta Selarka (Madras School of Economics)
    Abstract: This paper empirically examines the impact of network ties of women directors on firm value and sheds light on the unaddressed issue of whether such ties can serve as one of the channels through which women on board affect firm performance. In doing so, the study also seeks to provide a gendered perspective of the performance effects of interlocking directorates on which empirical evidence is scant. Using a panel of listed firms in India for the period 2010-2020 covering periods of pre and post institution of gender quota on company boards, our study finds that women director connectedness, as captured in select network centrality measures, has a positive and robust effect on firm value. We further find evidence that the positive relationship with firm value is driven by the information advantage and influence of women director networks. Finally, based on a director level analysis, we find that more connected women directors, including those who are independent, contribute to corporate governance through higher meeting attendance, and through their memberships in important committees. The findings of the paper highlight the unique role of women director interlocks in firm governance and performance.
    Keywords: Interlocking directors, Firm value, Woman directors, Network centrality, India, Emerging markets
    JEL: G32 G34 G38
    Date: 2023–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:igiwpp:2023-016&r=net
  6. By: Célestin Coquidé (UTINAM - Univers, Transport, Interfaces, Nanostructures, Atmosphère et environnement, Molécules (UMR 6213) - INSU - CNRS - Institut national des sciences de l'Univers - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UFC - Université de Franche-Comté - UBFC - Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté [COMUE], DM2L - Data Mining and Machine Learning - LIRIS - Laboratoire d'InfoRmatique en Image et Systèmes d'information - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - ECL - École Centrale de Lyon - Université de Lyon - UCBL - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - Université de Lyon - INSA Lyon - Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon - Université de Lyon - INSA - Institut National des Sciences Appliquées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, LIRIS - Laboratoire d'InfoRmatique en Image et Systèmes d'information - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - ECL - École Centrale de Lyon - Université de Lyon - UCBL - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - Université de Lyon - INSA Lyon - Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon - Université de Lyon - INSA - Institut National des Sciences Appliquées - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); José Lages (UTINAM - Univers, Transport, Interfaces, Nanostructures, Atmosphère et environnement, Molécules (UMR 6213) - INSU - CNRS - Institut national des sciences de l'Univers - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UFC - Université de Franche-Comté - UBFC - Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté [COMUE]); Dima Shepelyansky (LPT - Laboratoire de Physique Théorique - UT3 - Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier - UT - Université de Toulouse - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - FeRMI - Fédération de recherche « Matière et interactions » - INSA Toulouse - Institut National des Sciences Appliquées - Toulouse - INSA - Institut National des Sciences Appliquées - UT - Université de Toulouse - UT3 - Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier - UT - Université de Toulouse - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
    Abstract: We extend the opinion formation approach to probe the world influence of economical organizations. Our opinion formation model mimics a battle between currencies within the international trade network. Based on the United Nations Comtrade database, we construct the world trade network for the years of the last decade from 2010 to 2020. We consider different core groups constituted by countries preferring to trade in a specific currency. We will consider principally two core groups, namely, five Anglo-Saxon countries that prefer to trade in US dollar and the 11 BRICS+ that prefer to trade in a hypothetical currency, hereafter called BRI, pegged to their economies. We determine the trade currency preference of the other countries via a Monte Carlo process depending on the direct transactions between the countries. The results obtained in the frame of this mathematical model show that starting from the year 2014, the majority of the world countries would have preferred to trade in BRI than USD. The Monte Carlo process reaches a steady state with three distinct groups: two groups of countries preferring to trade in whatever is the initial distribution of the trade currency preferences, one in BRI and the other in USD, and a third group of countries swinging as a whole between USD and BRI depending on the initial distribution of the trade currency preferences. We also analyze the battle between three currencies: on one hand, we consider USD, BRI and EUR, the latter currency being pegged by the core group of nine EU countries. We show that the countries preferring EUR are mainly the swing countries obtained in the frame of the two currencies model. On the other hand, we consider USD, CNY (Chinese yuan), OPE, the latter currency being pegged to the major OPEC+ economies for which we try to probe the effective economical influence within international trade. Finally, we present the reduced Google matrix description of the trade relations between the Anglo-Saxon countries and the BRICS+.
    Date: 2024–02–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04461784&r=net
  7. By: Olivier J. Walther; David Russell
    Abstract: African armed conflicts involve a myriad of state forces, rebel groups and extremist organisations bound by rapidly changing alliances and rivalries. Organisations that were allies one day can fight each other the next and co-operate later still. The objective of this note is to update the pioneer work on conflict networks conducted by the OECD Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC) in the region by using a formal approach to networks known as dynamic social network analysis. Leveraging a dataset of 3 800 actors and 60 000 violent events from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) from 1997-2023, the note monitors how the co-operative and rivalrous ties between violent actors have changed over time, both at the regional and local levels. The growing number of belligerents, increasing density of rivalrous relationships and growing polarisation of the conflict networks observed in this note are extremely worrying for the future of the region. Not only do they make peaceful efforts more difficult than ever, but they also contribute to increasing the number of potential victims among the civilian population.
    Keywords: conflict, dynamic social network analysis, networks, North Africa, political violence, Sahel, West Africa
    JEL: D74 D85 H56 N47
    Date: 2024–03–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:swacaa:41-en&r=net

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