The Estimation of Diffusion Processes with Private Network Information

Speaker: Yiran Xie
Affiliation: The University of Sydney
Join via Zoom link: https://uqz.zoom.us/j/82603079317 

Abstract 

Innovations, either products or ideas, often diffuse in the population via social ties. This paper studies the identification and estimation of diffusion processes in social and economic networks. Compared to the classic econometric diffusion literature that assumes a continuous population with a stochastic network structure, we provide a new econometric framework to analyze diffusion processes in fixed networks where Bayesian players observe their close neighbours. We demonstrate the existence of the equilibrium of the model and characterize the unique symmetric equilibrium. Based on these theoretical findings, we propose a consistent and tractable two-step estimator for payoff parameters using feasible data from a single large network. We evaluate the finite sample performance using Monte Carlo simulations.

About the presenter's meeting 

If you would like to meet with Ms Xie contact: Dr Fu Ouyan.