Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(40)
- Faculty Publications (18)
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- 2023
- Article
Estimating Causal Peer Influence in Homophilous Social Networks by Inferring Latent Locations.
By: Edward McFowland III and Cosma Rohilla Shalizi
Social influence cannot be identified from purely observational data on social networks, because such influence is generically confounded with latent homophily, that is, with a node’s network partners being informative about the node’s attributes and therefore its... View Details
- February 2023
- Article
Homophily and Acrophily as Drivers of Political Segregation
By: Amit Goldenberg, Joseph M. Abruzzo, Zi Huang, Jonas Schone, David Bailey, Robb Willer, Eran Halperin and James J. Gross
Political segregation is an important social problem, increasing polarization and impeding effective governance. Previous work has viewed the central driver of segregation to be political homophily, the tendency to associate with others who have similar views. Here we... View Details
- November 2021
- Article
Ratings, Reviews, and the Marketing of New Products
By: Itay P. Fainmesser, Dominique Olié Lauga and Elie Ofek
We study how user-generated content (UGC) about new products impacts a firm's advertising and pricing decisions and the effect on profits and market dynamics. We construct a two-period model where consumers value quality and are heterogeneous in their taste for the new... View Details
- Apr 2021
- Conference Presentation
Political Homophily and Acrophily
By: Amit Goldenberg and J. J. Gross
- Article
Going It Alone: Competition Increases the Attractiveness of Minority Status
By: Erika L. Kirgios, Edward H. Chang and Katherine L. Milkman
Past research demonstrates that people prefer to affiliate with others who resemble them demographically. However, we posit that when competing for scarce opportunities, strategic considerations moderate the strength of this tendency toward homophily. Across six... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
(When) Does Appearance Matter? Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial
By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Tarun Khanna, Christos A. Makridis and Subhradip Sarker
While there is evidence about labor market discrimination based on race, religion, and gender, we know little about whether physical appearance leads to discrimination in labor market outcomes. We deploy a randomized experiment on 1,000 respondents in India between... View Details
- 2017
- Working Paper
Homophily in Entrepreneurial Team Formation
By: Paul A. Gompers, Kevin Huang and Sophie Q. Wang
We study the role of homophily in group formation. Using a unique dataset of MBA students, we observe homophily in ethnicity and gender increases the probability of forming teams by 25%. Homophily in education and past working experience increases the probability of... View Details
- June 2016
- Article
Social and Spatial Clustering of People at Humanity's Largest Gathering
By: Ian Barnett, Tarun Khanna and Jukka-Pekka Onnela
Macroscopic behavior of scientific and societal systems results from the aggregation of microscopic behaviors of their constituent elements, but connecting the macroscopic with the microscopic in human behavior has traditionally been difficult. Manifestations of... View Details
- March 2016
- Article
The Cost of Friendship
By: Paul A. Gompers, Vladimir Mukharlyamov and Yuhai Xuan
We investigate how personal characteristics affect people's desire to collaborate and whether this attraction enhances or detracts from performance in venture capital. We find that venture capitalists who share the same ethnic, educational, or career background are... View Details
- 2016
- Working Paper
Through the Grapevine: Network Effects on the Design of Executive Compensation Contracts
By: Susanna Gallani
Effective design of executive compensation contracts involves choosing and weighting performance measures, as well as defining the mix between fixed and incentive-based pay components, with a view to fostering talent retention and goal congruence. The variability in... View Details
- 2014
- Working Paper
The Cost of Friendship
By: Paul A. Gompers, Vladimir Mukharlyamov and Yuhai Xuan
We investigate how personal characteristics affect people's desire to collaborate and whether this attraction enhances or detracts from performance in venture capital. We find that venture capitalists who share the same ethnic, educational, or career background are... View Details
- 2013
- Working Paper
Separating Homophily and Peer Influence with Latent Space
By: Joseph P. Davin, Sunil Gupta and Mikolaj Jan Piskorski
We study the impact of peer behavior on the adoption of mobile apps in a social network. To identify social influence properly, we introduce latent space as an approach to control for latent homophily, the idea that "birds of a feather flock together." In a series of... View Details
- September–October 2013
- Article
Discretion Within Constraint: Homophily and Structure in a Formal Organization
By: Adam M. Kleinbaum, Toby E. Stuart and Michael Tushman
Homophily in social relations results from both individual preferences and selective opportunities for interaction, but how these two mechanisms interact in large, contemporary organizations is not well understood. We argue that organizational structures and geography... View Details
- 2012
- Working Paper
The Cost of Friendship
By: Paul A. Gompers, Yuhai Xuan and Vladimir Mukharlyamov
This paper explores two broad questions on collaboration between individuals. First, we investigate what personal characteristics affect people's desire to work together. Second, given the influence of these personal characteristics, we analyze whether this attraction... View Details
- 2011
- Working Paper
Discretion Within the Constraints of Opportunity: Gender Homophily and Structure in a Formal Organization
By: Adam M. Kleinbaum, Toby E. Stuart and Michael L. Tushman
Homophily in social relations is widely documented. We know that homophily results from both individual preferences and uneven opportunities for interaction, but how these two mechanisms interact in formal organizations is not well understood. We argue that... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Communication (and Coordination?) in a Modern, Complex Organization
By: Adam M. Kleinbaum, Toby E. Stuart and Michael L. Tushman
This is a descriptive study of the structure of communications in a modern organization. We analyze a dataset with millions of electronic mail messages, calendar meetings and teleconferences for many thousands of employees of a single, multidivisional firm during a... View Details
- 2007
- Conference Presentation
Flocking Together: Examining the Role of Homophily in Economic Exchange Relationships
By: Ranjay Gulati
- Forthcoming
- Article
How Important Is Editorial Gatekeeping? Evidence from Top Biomedical Journals
By: Joshua L. Krieger, Kyle R. Myers and Ariel D. Stern
We examine editors' influence on the scientific content of academic journals by unpacking the role of three major forces: journals' missions, aggregate supply of and demand for specific topics, and scientific homophily via editorial gatekeeping. In a sample of top... View Details