Networks And Markets

Networks and Markets argues that economists' knowledge of markets and sociologists' rich understanding of networks can and should be combined. Together they can help us achieve a more coherent view of economic life, where transactions follow both the logic of economic incentives and the established channels of personal relationships. Market exchange is impersonal, episodic, and carried out at arm's length. All that matters is how much the seller is asking, and how much the buyer is offering. An economic network, by contrast, is based upon more personalized and enduring relationships between people tied together by more than just price. Networks and Markets focuses on how the two concepts relate to each other: Are social networks an essential precondition for successful markets, or do networks arise naturally out of markets, as faceless traders build reputations and gain confidence in each other? The book includes contributions by both sociologists and economists, applying the concepts of markets and networks to concrete empirical phenomena. Among the topics analyzed, the book explains how, in Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan, firms combine into tightly-knit business blocs, how wholesalers in a Marseille fish market earn the loyalty of customers, and how ethnic retailers in the U.S. share valuable market information with other shopkeepers from their ethnic group. A response to each chapter discusses the issue from the standpoint of the other discipline. Sociologists are challenged to go beyond small-scale economic exchange and to integrate their concept of networks into a broader understanding of the economic system as a whole, while economists are challenged to consider the economic implications of network ties, which can be strong or weak, unconditional or highly contingent. This book proves that both economics and sociology provide stronger insights when they study markets and networks as parallel forms of exchange. But it also clarifies the healthy division of labor that remains between the two disciplines. Sociologists are adept at showing how markets are framed by social institutions; economists specialize in explaining how markets perform, taking the social context as a given. Networks and Markets showcases what each discipline does best and reveals where each discipline would do better by borrowing from the other.

Are all film stars linked to Kevin Bacon? Why do the stock markets rise and fall sharply on the strength of a vague rumour? How does gossip spread so quickly? Are we all related through six degrees of separation? There is a growing awareness of the complex networks that pervade modern society. We see them in the rapid growth of the internet, the ease of global communication, the swift spread of news and information, and in the way epidemics and financial crises develop with startling speed and intensity. This introductory book on the new science of networks takes an interdisciplinary approach, using economics, sociology, computing, information science and applied mathematics to address fundamental questions about the links that connect us, and the ways that our decisions can have consequences for others.

A graduate-level, mathematically rigorous introduction to strategic behavior in a networked world. This introductory graduate-level text uses tools from game theory and graph theory to examine the role of network structures and network effects in economic and information markets. The goal is for students to develop an intuitive and mathematically rigorous understanding of how strategic agents interact in a connected world. The text synthesizes some of the central results in the field while also simplifying their treatment to make them more accessible to nonexperts. Thus, students at the introductory level will gain an understanding of key ideas in the field that are usually only taught at the advanced graduate level. The book introduces basic concepts from game theory and graph theory as well as some fundamental algorithms for exploring graphs. These tools are then applied to analyze strategic interactions over social networks, to explore different types of markets and mechanisms for networks, and to study the role of beliefs and higher-level beliefs (beliefs about beliefs). Specific topics discussed include coordination and contagion on social networks, traffic networks, matchings and matching markets, exchange networks, auctions, voting, web search, models of belief and knowledge, and how beliefs affect auctions and markets. An appendix offers a “Primer on Probability.” Mathematically rigorous, the text assumes a level of mathematical maturity (comfort with definitions and proofs) in the reader.

Describes how patterns of information, knowledge, and cultural production are changing. The author shows that the way information and knowledge are made available can either limit or enlarge the ways people create and express themselves. He describes the range of legal and policy choices that confront.

Understanding the political and socio-economic factors which give rise to youth recruitment into militant organizations is central to grasping some of the most important issues that affect the contemporary Middle East and Africa. In this book, Khalid Mustafa Medani explains why youth are attracted to militant organizations, examining the specific role economic globalization plays in determining how and why militant activists emerge. Based on extensive fieldwork, Medani offers an in-depth analysis of the impact of globalization, neoliberal reforms and informal economic networks on the rise and evolution of moderate and militant Islamist movements. In an original contribution to the study of Islamist and ethnic politics, he shows the importance of understanding when and under what conditions religious rather than other forms of identity become politically salient. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Assembling Consumption marks a definitive step in the institutionalisation of qualitative business research. By gathering leading scholars and educators who study markets, marketing and consumption through the lenses of philosophy, sociology and anthropology, this book clarifies and applies the investigative tools offered by assemblage theory, actor-network theory and non-representational theory. Clear theoretical explanation and methodological innovation, alongside empirical applications of these emerging frameworks will offer readers new and refreshing perspectives on consumer culture and market societies. This is an essential reading for both seasoned scholars and advanced students of markets, economies and social forms of consumption.

This interdisciplinary reader provides a distinctive introduction to the way social, political and economic life is coordinated. It brings together three quite different models of coordination - markets, hierarchies and networks - and places them into a comparative framework, presenting a comprehensive and insightful overview of social coordination. The articles dealing with each model explore the characteristics of that coordinating mechanism, outlining key theoretical issues and drawing on various empirical examples. The final section shows how these models can be compared and contrasted. It also assesses the respective strengths, weaknesses and limitations of each model. Markets, Hierarchies and Networks is a set

Public managers can, to a certain extent, choose between various mana- ment paradigms which are provided by public and business administration scholars and by politicians as well. How do they find their way in this c- fusing supermarket of competing ideas? This book explores how public managers in Western bureaucracies deal with the mutually undermining ideas of hierarchical, network and market governance. Do they possess a specific logic of action, a rationale, when they combine and switch - tween these governance styles? This chapter sets the scene for the book as a whole and presents the - search topic and the research question. 1.1 Problem setting Since the Second World War, Western public administration systems have changed drastically. The hierarchical style of governing of the 1950s to the 1970s was partly replaced by market mechanisms, from the 1980s - wards. In the 1990s, a third style of governing, based on networks, further enriched the range of possible steering, coordination and organisation - terventions. In the new millennium, public sector organisations seem to apply complex and varying mixtures of all three styles of what we will - fine as governance in a broad sense. This development has brought about two problems.