Threshold models of cascades in large-scale networks

TL;DR

This paper studies how cascades of behaviors or beliefs spread in large networks using the Linear Threshold Model, providing a mean-field approximation and analyzing the dynamics and bifurcations of the process.

Contribution

It introduces a nonlinear recursive equation to approximate LTM dynamics on large heterogeneous networks and proves its accuracy for most network configurations.

Findings

The recursive equation closely predicts cascade evolution in large networks.

Bifurcation analysis reveals multiple possible cascade outcomes.

Theoretical predictions match numerical simulations on real networks.

Abstract

The spread of new beliefs, behaviors, conventions, norms, and technologies in social and economic networks are often driven by cascading mechanisms, and so are contagion dynamics in financial networks. Global behaviors generally emerge from the interplay between the structure of the interconnection topology and the local agents' interactions. We focus on the Linear Threshold Model (LTM) of cascades first introduced by Granovetter (1978). This can be interpreted as the best response dynamics in a network game whereby agents choose strategically between two actions and their payoff is an increasing function of the number of their neighbors choosing the same action. Each agent is equipped with an individual threshold representing the number of her neighbors who must have adopted a certain action for that to become the agent's best response. We analyze the LTM dynamics on large-scale networks with heterogeneous agents. Through a local mean-field approach, we obtain a nonlinear, one-dimensional, recursive equation that approximates the evolution of the LTM dynamics on most of the networks of a given size and distribution of degrees and thresholds. Specifically, we prove that, on all but a fraction of networks with given degree and threshold statistics that is vanishing as the network size grows large, the actual fraction of adopters of a given action in the LTM dynamics is arbitrarily close to the output of the aforementioned recursion. We then analyze the dynamic behavior of this recursion and its bifurcations from a dynamical systems viewpoint. Applications of our findings to some real network testbeds show good adherence of the theoretical predictions to numerical simulations.