Motivated by empirical evidence I uncover on the dynamics of French firms' exports, I offer a
novel theory of trade frictions. Firms export only into markets where they have a contact …

The pervasive diffusion of Social Networks (SN) produced an unprecedented amount of
heterogeneous data. Thus, traditional approaches quickly became unpractical for real life …

We model network formation when heterogeneous nodes enter sequentially and form
connections through both random meetings and network-based search, but with type …

This paper first investigates empirically the relationship between risk aversion and social
network structure in a large group of undergraduate students. We find that risk aversion is …

This thesis comprises three related yet independent essays on approximate Bayesian
computation (ABC) and network models. Chapter 1 begins with a case study that assesses …

Growing evidence suggests that many social and economic networks are scale free in that
their degree distribution P (d) is approximately proportional to d^{-γ}. The most widespread …

We present a model in which patent citations occur as new ideas are produced from
combinations of existing ideas. An idea's usability in this process is represented as an …

This dissertation contributes to research on relationship formation in the online world. The
general topic is approached from two different angles. First, I examine how pure strangers …

Genomic regions determining sexual compatibility often display recombination suppression,
as occurs in sex chromosomes, plant self-incompatibility loci and fungal mating-type loci …

This dissertation addresses topics in the econometrics of network formation models. Chapter
1 provides a review of the literature. Statistical models focus on the specification of the …