Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/43818 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
Working Papers No. 398
Publisher: 
Bielefeld University, Institute of Mathematical Economics (IMW), Bielefeld
Abstract: 
Although both betweenness and closeness centrality are claimed to be important for the effectiveness of someone's network position, it has not been explicitly studied which networks emerge if actors follow incentives for these two positional advantages. We propose such a model and observe that network dynamics differ considerably in a scenario with either betweenness or closeness incentives compared to a scenario in which closeness and betweenness incentives are combined. Considering social consequences, we find low clustering when actors strive for either type of centrality. Surprisingly, actors striving for closeness are likely to reach networks with relatively low closeness and high betweenness, while this is the other way round for actors striving for betweenness. This shows that in both situations the network formation process implies a social dilemma in which the social optimum is not reached by individual optimizing.
Subjects: 
Closeness centrality
Betweenness centrality
Actor utility
Network dynamics
Social dilemma
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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