Frederic MOISAN – emlyon business school

Abstract: We present a new platform for large scale network experiments in continuous time that allows us to study the economic principles underlying the emergence of well-known social and economic phenomena. The versatility of the platform is illustrated through various experiments on network formation with groups ranging from 8 to 100 subjects. These experiments provide important insights into the emergence of influencers and connectors in social communication networks, and the emergence of dominant intermediaries in trading networks. Our experimental results reveal that subjects create sparse networks that are either centralized and unequal, or dispersed and equal. Those networks are almost always highly efficient. Although the network structures are in line with theoretical predictions, we find powerful effects of the group size, payoff information (as perceived by subjects), and the incentive structure on individual investments in linking and effort.

BIO Frederic MOISAN – emlyon business school

Frederic Moisan holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Toulouse, and occupied research positions at Carnegie Mellon University (Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Dynamic Decision Making Lab), the University of Cambridge (Faculty of Economics, Institute of New Economic Thinking), and the blockchain-based startup fetch.ai.
His main research interests are in behavioral/experimental economics, social & economic networks, collective intelligence, and the design of innovative social technologies. His interdisciplinary work has been published in international journals and conferences such as the European Economic Review, Decision, and the International Joint Conference in Artificial Intelligence.