Abstract
This paper provides a mean-field game theoretic model of the bandwagon effect in social networks. This effect can be observed whenever individuals tend to align their own opinions to a mainstream opinion. The contribution is threefold. First, we describe the opinion propagation as a mean-field game with local interactions. Second, we establish mean-field equilibrium strategies in the case where the mainstream opinion is constant. Such strategies are shown to have a threshold structure. Third, we extend the use of threshold strategies to the case of time-varying mainstream opinion and study the evolution of the macroscopic system.
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This work was supported by the 2012 “Research Fellow” Program of the Dipartimento di Matematica, Università di Trento.
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Bagagiolo, F., Bauso, D. & Pesenti, R. Mean-Field Game Modeling the Bandwagon Effect with Activation Costs. Dyn Games Appl 6, 456–476 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13235-015-0167-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13235-015-0167-x
Keywords
- Games with infinitely many players
- Bandwagon effect
- Activation costs
- Threshold policies
- Mean-field games
- Mode