Urban interactions

Arbeitspapier

This paper studies social-tie formation when individuals care about the geographical location of other individuals. In our model, the intensity of social interactions can be chosen at the same time as friends. We characterize the equilibrium in terms of both social interactions and social capital (the value of social interactions offered by each agent) for a general distribution of individuals in the urban geographical space. We show that greater geographical dispersion decreases the incentives to socially interact. We also show that the equilibrium frequency of interactions is lower than the efficient one.Using a unique geo-coded dataset of friendship networks among adolescents in the United States, we estimate the model and validate that agents interact less than the social first best optimum. Our policy analysis suggests that, given the same cost, subsidizing social interactions yields a higher total welfare than subsidizing transportation costs.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IFN Working Paper ; No. 1192

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; General Regional Economics (includes Regional Data) ; Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics ; Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification
• Subject: Urban economics ; Social interactions ; Social capital ; Policies

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Kim, Jung Sun ; Patacchini, Eleonora ; Picard, Pierre M. ; Zenou, Yves
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)
• (where): Stockholm
• (when): 2017

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/183421
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET