Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/183421 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
IFN Working Paper No. 1192
Publisher: 
Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), Stockholm
Abstract: 
This paper studies social-tie formation when individuals care about the geographical location of other individuals. In our model, the intensity of social interactions can be chosen at the same time as friends. We characterize the equilibrium in terms of both social interactions and social capital (the value of social interactions offered by each agent) for a general distribution of individuals in the urban geographical space. We show that greater geographical dispersion decreases the incentives to socially interact. We also show that the equilibrium frequency of interactions is lower than the efficient one.Using a unique geo-coded dataset of friendship networks among adolescents in the United States, we estimate the model and validate that agents interact less than the social first best optimum. Our policy analysis suggests that, given the same cost, subsidizing social interactions yields a higher total welfare than subsidizing transportation costs.
Subjects: 
Urban economics
Social interactions
Social capital
Policies
JEL: 
R10
R23
Z13
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
502.39 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.