1. Overview of the course
The past decade has seen a growing interest in the complex “connectedness” of
modern society. At the heart of this fascination is the idea of a network. How we make decisions to
adopt a new idea, to invest by buying/selling security stocks, or even to vote for a specific campaign
candidate is influenced by the people that we are linked with. How people behave
is affected by incentives and by their expectations about the
behaviors of the people with whom they are linked.
In this course the students will be exposed to an interdisciplinary body of
knowledge in sciences, engineering, social sciences, economics, business, political
science and medical health studies. The goal of this course is to show how
social network is applied to the study of economics, political science,
and medical health study.
2. Subjects covered in this course
Students will be taught the state-of-the-art research results on social
networks, including Diffusion of opinions, information, rumors and etc.
Application of social networks to the study of economics, markets, and stock
trading. Application of social networks to the study of voting, election and political behavior
3. Topics covered
Representing and measuring networks
Empirical background on social, economic networks and health
Strategic Network Formation
Diffusion through networks
Learning and networks
Decisions, behavior, and games on networks
Networked markets
Game-theoretic modeling of networks
Allocation rules and cooperative games
Voting and election
4. Textbook
David Easley and Jon Kleinberg, “Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning about a Highly Connected
World,” Cambridge University Press, 2010.
5. Reference books
Serge Galam, ``Sociophysics a Physicist’s Modeling of Psycho-political
Phenomena,” Springer, 2012.
Matthew O. Jackson, “Social and Economic Networks,” Princeton University Press, 2008.
Ahmad K. Naimzada, Silvana Stefani and Anna Torriero, “Networks, Topology and
Dynamics Theory and Applications to Economics and Social Systems,” Springer, 2009.
6. Grading Policy
Homework (30%)
Midterm exam (30%)
Final (30%)
Class participation (10%)
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