The Theory of Networks

The Victor Rothschild Memorial Symposium
27th Jerusalem School in Economic Theory

This year the HSE Moscow Faculty of Economic Sciences will be represented by a master student from the research program in economics and three undergraduate students.

Symposia Organizers* describe the School as follows: “Economic and social interactions often take place through a network - a collection of individuals together with a structure of pairwise connections between them. This year’s Summer School will be devoted to the theory of networks. Aside from presenting the basic theoretical ideas, the School will also include econometric and experimental work and applications to finance and development, among other fields.”

Here’s what some students are expecting from the School:

Nastya Faikina, bachelor program in economics UC San Diego PhD student beginning in September 2016:

- This year’s Jerusalem School in Economic Theory is devoted to one of my primary research interests, which is the theory of social networks. This is a rather new area in economics, which has been mostly developed in the last decades. It studies how communication and  different structures of relationships among people influence their behavior through the spread of information, different learning processes and so on. My own research is devoted  to the question of how individuals decide whether to cheat or not in their individual projects based on the observational and communication learning in the network of peers. 

To evaluate the significance of Jerusalem Symposium you just have to look at the list of key speakers, which includes Yann Bramoulle, Benjamin Golub, Sanjeev Goyal, Matthew Jackson, Leeat Yariv, Esther Duflo, Matt Elliott, Andrea Galeotti, Adam Szeidl. These people are the most active researchers in the theory of networks and its applications. There is no doubt that an opportunity of communication with them will significantly contribute to my  knowledge in this field and, especially, to the progress in my own research. This conference is especially useful since we do not have many specialists in the social networks at the HSE,  so the collaboration with top researchers in this field will give the necessary help and advices for enhancement of my project. It is also worth to note that the participation of Bachelor’s students was approved for the first time that confirms that studying at the HSE gave us a good basis for engagement in the research society.
I think the Jerusalem School in Economic Theory will give me valuable experience as for further studying in the graduate school and also for my future career as a researcher. I am looking forward to have an opportunity to meet such outstanding scholars who gave me so much inspiration to do my own research in this field.

Kirill Ponomarev, bachelor program in economics, UCLA PhD student beginning in September 2016:

- I believe that the Jerusalem School in Economic Theory is the right place for me to, first, learn from true experts and, second, exchange ideas with people who are really interested in the field of networks. It’s hard to imagine a better place to go, since the list of speakers includes Yann Bramoulle, Benjamin Golub, Matthew Jackson and others who are really at the top of this field.

At the moment I'm working in the Center for Institutional Studies at HSE in a research group which studies student social networks and performance. I’m mostly interested in empirical estimation of peer effects among students with Bayesian methods. This is quite a new approach (in context of peer effects estimation) and there is much room for development. So I believe that the summer school will help me gain insights and advance in the topic.   

 Alexander Dorofeev, HSE/NES Joint Program in Economics:

- This summer, I will take part in the 27th Jerusalem School in Economic Theory. It is a great scientific and educational event that is designed for PhD students, but thanks to the faculty of economic science international office support, I also got the opportunity to participate. There is a number of reasons why people go to the Holy Land, but once you see the School’s list of speakers, you cannot delay visiting the sacred sites. Eric Maskin, Nobel Prize winner, Esther Duflo, Clark Medal recipient, Matthew Jackson, and many other well-known and high-ranked economists will be presenting at the School. This year’s topic is economics of networks, and there is a lot of interesting research going on in this field. I am particularly looking forward to seeing a presentation by Duflo and Jackson, as they have recently finished a joint project that used the network theory approach in development economics.
It is definitely a challenge for an undergraduate student to participate in a graduate event of such a level, but as I plan to become a PhD student next year, it is a challenge worth taking. This is not to say that I don’t feel nervous, but as a student of the HSE-NES Joint Program in Economic, I believe that I am quite well-prepared. Well… We’ll see.

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*Eric Maskin, Director (Harvard University), Benjamin Golub (Harvard University), Matthew Jackson (Stanford University), Elchanan Ben Porath (Co Director) (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)