arXiv subjects

Fabrizio Panebianco

Publications and source records attributed to Fabrizio Panebianco.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

Homophily and infections: static and dynamic effects

We analyze the effect of homophily in the diffusion of a harmful state between two groups of agents that differ in immunization rates. Homophily has a very different impact on the steady state infection level (that is increasing in homophily when homophily is small, and decreasing when high), and on the cumulative number of infections generated by a deviation from the steady state (that, instead, is decreasing in homophily when homophily is small, and increasing when high). If immunization rates are endogenous, homophily has the opposite impact on the two groups. However, the sign of the group-level impact is the opposite if immunization is motivated by infection risk or by peer pressure. If motivations are group-specific, homophily can be harmful to both groups.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2022

Learning and Selfconfirming Equilibria in Network Games

Consider a set of agents who play a network game repeatedly. Agents may not know the network. They may even be unaware that they are interacting with other agents in a network. Possibly, they just understand that their payoffs depend on an unknown state that is, actually, an aggregate of the actions of their neighbors. Each time, every agent chooses an action that maximizes her instantaneous subjective expected payoff and then updates her beliefs according to what she observes. In particular, we assume that each agent only observes her realized payoff. A steady state of the resulting dynamic is a selfconfirming equilibrium given the assumed feedback. We characterize the structure of the set of selfconfirming equilibria in the given class of network games, we relate selfconfirming and Nash equilibria, and we analyze simple conjectural best-reply paths whose limit points are selfconfirming equilibria.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2021

Epidemic dynamics with homophily, vaccination choices, and pseudoscience attitudes

We interpret attitudes towards science and pseudosciences as cultural traits that diffuse in society through communication efforts exerted by agents. We present a tractable model that allows us to study the interaction among the diffusion of an epidemic, vaccination choices, and the dynamics of cultural traits. We apply it to study the impact of homophily between pro-vaxxers and anti-vaxxers on the total number of cases (the cumulative infection). We show that, during the outbreak of a disease, homophily has the direct effect of decreasing the speed of recovery. Hence, it may increase the number of cases and make the disease endemic. The dynamics of the shares of the two cultural traits in the population is crucial in determining the sign of the total effect on the cumulative infection: more homophily is beneficial if agents are not too flexible in changing their cultural trait, is detrimental otherwise.

q-bio.PE↗