On Measuring Personal Connections and the Extent of Social Networks
at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies

On Measuring Personal Connections and the Extent of Social Networks (see also attachment, exam1) (pdf)

by Yongsheng Xu (with Prasanta K. Pattanaik)
July 2003

Keywords: Social network, Social capital, Personal connection

The notions of personal connection and social networks are key ingredients of the increasingly important concept of social capital in social sciences in general and in economics in particular. This paper discusses the problem of measuring personal connection and the extent of social networks that may exist in a society. For this purpose we develop several conceptual and analytical frameworks. In the process, we axiomatically characterize several measures of personal connection and social networks.

Comments and questions regarding this paper may be directed to Yongsheng Xu at yxu3@gsu.edu.