Essays on Econometrics of Network Models

Abstract

Social networks affect a broad class of economic activities. The three chapters of my dissertation study social networks from two different lines of research. The first line of research examines the formation process of a social network. In Chapter 2, I introduce a new identification strategy and a semiparametric estimator for the formation process of an undirected network with additive agent-specific fixed effects. In Chapter 3, I analyze the formation process of a directed network with a broader type of unobserved heterogeneity. This heterogeneity is modeled as interactive fixed effects. The second line of my research complements the first approach by exploring the influence that network structures have on different economic activities. In Chapter 4, I recover the endogenous and exogenous social effects in a high-dimensional panel data model with an unobserved network structure.