This paper aims to demonstrate that the strategic approach of network formation can generate networks that share the main structural properties of most real social networks. We introduce a spatialized variation of the Connections model (Jackson and Wolinski, 1996) in which agents balance the...

This paper introduces a spatialized variation of the Connections model of Jackson and Wolinski (1996). Agents benefit from their direct and indirect connections in a communication network. They are arranged on a circle and bear costs for maintaining direct connections which are linearly...

This paper analyses the modalities according to which a large European university collaborates with firms by exploring its relational portfolio. We address this issue by exploiting a database listing more than 1000 firms having collaborated with the University Louis Pasteur between 1990 and...

This article provides a first empirical study of the determinants of the propensity to which academic scholars tend to perform interdisciplinarity research. For that purpose we introduce a measure of interdisciplinarity as the diversity of their research production across scientific domains. Our...

In this paper we present an original model of sequential problem choice within scientific communities. Disciplinary knowledge is accumulated by solving problems emerging in a growing tree-like web of research areas. Knowledge production is sequential since the problems solved generate new...

This paper is concerned with the incentive properties of the Matthew Effect by which since Merton [1968] one is usually describing the various cumulative advantages that obviously affect academic competition. We introduce a model of sequential contests in which the agents that have initially...

In this paper, we present a model of 'collective innovation' built upon the network formation formalism. In our model, agents localized on a circle benefit from knowledge flows from other agents with whom they are directly or indirectly connected. They support costs for direct connections which...

The modelling of networks formation has recently became the object of an increasing interest in economics. One of the important issues raised in this literature is the one of networks efficiency. Nevertheless, for non trivial payoff functions, searching for efficient network structures turns out...

Most of the empirical and theoretical literature aimed at understanding the behavioral patterns that lead to the formation of social networks argue that such networks are clustered because agents like social closure, since it facilitates cooperation enforcement, for instance, or increases match...