Publication details
Markets, social networks, endogenous preferences, and opinion leaders
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2013 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | Proceedings of the 31st International Conference Mathematical Methods in Economics 2013 |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Economy |
| Keywords | endogenous preferences; market; social network; opinion leaders; agent-based simulation |
| Attached files | |
| Description | This paper studies the impact of opinion leaders (“stars”) and their fans on equilibrium market prices within the Bell’s model (JEBO 2002). The simulation shows that 1) the model may not converge when the opinion leader consumes the good that is extremely scarce---it can create infinite cycles in her fans’ preferences; 2) the preferences may not be completely polarized in the same situation---the agents with non-polarized preferences prevent the cycles; 3) while the agents in the Bell’s model consume only the more abundant good when the other good is extremely scarce, the presence of the opinion leader eliminates this when she consumes the scarce good, and 4) the presence of the opinion leader and her fans can sometimes surprisingly lower the price of the good that the opinion leader consumes. |
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