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on Network Economics |
| By: | Benjamin Golub |
| Abstract: | Square matrices often arise in microeconomics, particularly in network models addressing applications from opinion dynamics to platform regulation. Spectral theory provides powerful tools for analyzing their properties. We present an accessible overview of several fundamental applications of spectral methods in microeconomics, focusing especially on the Perron-Frobenius Theorem's role and its connection to centrality measures. Applications include social learning, network games, public goods provision, and market intervention under uncertainty. The exposition assumes minimal social science background, using spectral theory as a unifying mathematical thread to introduce interested readers to some exciting current topics in microeconomic theory. |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2502.12309 |
| By: | Afridi, Farzana; Dhillon, Amrita; Roy, Sanchari; Sangwan, Nikita |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the role of job search frictions and gender norms in shaping intrahousehold labor market outcomes in developing countries. We conduct a field experiment in Delhi, India where we randomly offer access to a hyper-local digital job search and matching platform either to married couples only (non-network treatment), or together with the wife's peer network (network treatment), or not at all. Approximately one year later, we find that couples in the non-network treatment group exhibit a degree of substitution in labor supply - wives reduce their intensive margin of work, driven by withdrawal from casual labor, while husbands increase theirs. In contrast, husbands in the network treatment group increase their labor supply on both extensive and intensive margins but with no impact on their wives' labor supply on either margin. Instead, wives' occupational structure shifts towards self-employment in the network treatment group. Our findings can be explained by a simple conceptual framework that incorporates gender-differentiated job search frictions, conservative social norms against (married) women's market work and home-production constraints. |
| Keywords: | social networks, social norms, gender, job-matching platforms, employment |
| JEL: | J16 J21 J24 O33 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qmsrps:202502 |
| By: | Cuong, Nguyen Manh; Mutai, Noah C.; Ibeh, Lawrence |
| Abstract: | The Ukraine conflict has profoundly affected global trade and international relations, particularly for Germany, a major player in Europe and the European Union. This study utilizes a Gravity Model analysis to explore Germany’s trade network and assess the impact of the conflict on its trade partnerships. |
| Date: | 2023–11–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:p672w_v1 |
| By: | Heng Chen; Joy Wu |
| Abstract: | Under the consumer-merchant bipartite network, we apply the indirect sampling approach to estimate merchant payment acceptance through a consumer payment diary. The records of in-person transactions in the consumer diary provide both the merchant sample via consumer-merchant linkages, and the merchant acceptance via consumers’ responses. Among merchants receiving multiple transactions, we show that the derived payment acceptance from the consumer reporting is high quality in terms of very few conflicts between usage and perception, and within perceptions. Furthermore, we show the necessity of weight adjustment to correct for the non-recorded-merchant bias due to the shorter duration of the diary (i.e., constrained to maximum three days). Finally, we compare our indirect sampling estimates to the ones from a direct sampling survey, and we find the results align well, which supports our indirect sampling application in terms of alleviating merchant response burden and reducing survey operation cost. |
| Keywords: | Bank notes; Econometrics and statistical methods |
| JEL: | C80 C83 E5 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocatr:126 |