Where to start with social networks? I'm working on my master's thesis in industrial organization and I have a model that is based on social networks. I have had two courses about social networks (one more focused on basic industrial organization questions in networks and the other more about basic graph theory) but as I work more on the model I feel I'm not really using the network in solving the questions that arise and leaving it more as a descriptive structure, and I fear it is mostly due to ignorance.

Can anyone refer to a good book, class notes or papers that might help me learn more deeply the implications of the network structure and/or the pros and cons of modeling a problem as a network? For example on how the network structure might be helpful when trying to determine existence of equilibrium.
The best introduction is, in my opinion, the book by Matthew Jackson. It has a pretty nice introduction (even if you know nothing about social networks) and chapters about many of the applications of graph theory in economics.


Jackson, M. O. (2008). Social and economic networks (Vol. 3).
Princeton: Princeton University Press.


It sounds like you try to model a game on a network (i.e., using game theory with players on a network without changing the network). If this is true, then the following paper might be even more relevant:


Galeotti, A., Goyal, S., Jackson, M. O., Vega-Redondo, F., &amp; Yariv,
L. (2010). Network games. The review of economic studies, 77(1),
218-244.