American Economic Journal:
Microeconomics
ISSN 1945-7669 (Print) | ISSN 1945-7685 (Online)
Behavioral Communities and the Atomic Structure of Networks
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics
(pp. 146–73)
Abstract
When people coordinate their behaviors with their friends—e.g., choosing whether to adopt a new technology, protest against a government, attend university—divisions within a social network can lead to contrasting norms of behavior in different parts of the network. We define a society's atoms to be groups of people who adopt the same behavior in every equilibrium. We show that the atoms are at least as coarse as blocks in stochastic block models, and that using knowledge of the atoms to seed the diffusion of a behavior significantly increases diffusion compared to seeding based on standard community detection algorithms.Citation
Jackson, Matthew O., and Evan C. Storms. 2026. "Behavioral Communities and the Atomic Structure of Networks." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 18 (1): 146–73. DOI: 10.1257/mic.20230304Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D85 Network Formation and Analysis: Theory
- D91 Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
- Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification