The effect of network topologies on the spreading of technological developments

Authored by Gergely Kocsis, Ferenc Kun

Date Published: 2008-10

DOI: 10.1088/1742-5468/2008/10/p10014

Sponsors: Hungarian Academy of Sciences OTKA Toyota

Platforms: No platforms listed

Model Documentation: Other Narrative Mathematical description

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

We study an agent-based model, as a special type of opinion dynamics, of the spreading of innovations in socio-economic systems varying the topology of agents' social contacts. The agents are organized on a square lattice where the connections are rewired with a certain probability. We show that the degree polydispersity and long range connections of agents can facilitate, but can also hinder the spreading of new technologies, depending on the amount of advantages provided by the innovation. We determine the critical fraction of innovative agents required to initiate spreading and to obtain a significant technological progress. As the fraction of innovative agents approaches the critical value, the spreading process slows down analogously to the critical slowing down observed at continuous phase transitions. The characteristic timescale at the critical point proved to have the same scaling as the average shortest path of the underlying social network. The model captures some relevant features of the spreading of innovations in telecommunication technologies.

Tags

interacting agent models socio-economic networks