Time: 4pm Tuesday, April 13
Place: 205 South Hall

         Agency and Structure in Networks of Exchange
          
                     Elisa Bienenstock
                    Sociology Department
                    Stanford University

Work on social networks has focused on how network structures effect and
limit individual action. Recently, (Emirbayer and Goodwin, 1994) network
theory was criticized for ignoring how  actions of individuals affect
structures. Prior work on exchange networks (Bienenstock and Bonacich,
Bonacich and Bienenstock, Friedkin, ) has show that while some structures
limit behavior, other structures allow for a wide range of distributions.
The literature on weak and strong power as well as work on the game
theoretic core, distinguish networks that are deterministic, from those that
allow for varying distributional outcomes. In these less deterministic
structures it may be that the strategies of subjects can alter the structure
within which they are embedded. Subjects in these experiments are very
limited in the actions they can perform. Subjects can only exchange with
others with whom  they are initially connected. From among those they may
select with whom, and how much they are willing to exchange. This allows
subjects only one way to alter the structure --- by excluding partners from
exchanges. In this talk I will discuss some ideas for  experiments designed
to test whether a subject's bargaining  strategy can affect the ultimate
exchange structure, thereby affecting the final resource distribution for
the entire network.