Structural Interventions in Networks

TL;DR

This paper develops a unified framework to evaluate the effects of characteristic and structural interventions in networks, revealing an equivalence that enhances analysis and application in various social scenarios.

Contribution

It introduces a general framework linking structural and characteristic interventions, offering new insights and methods for analyzing network-based social interventions.

Findings

Structural and characteristic interventions can be equivalent under certain conditions.

The framework applies to identifying key individuals in criminal and social networks.

Enhanced analysis tools for designing effective network interventions.

Abstract

Two types of interventions are commonly implemented in networks: characteristic intervention, which influences individuals' intrinsic incentives, and structural intervention, which targets the social links among individuals. In this paper we provide a general framework to evaluate the distinct equilibrium effects of both types of interventions. We identify a hidden equivalence between a structural intervention and an endogenously determined characteristic intervention. Compared with existing approaches in the literature, the perspective from such an equivalence provides several advantages in the analysis of interventions that target network structure. We present a wide range of applications of our theory, including identifying the most wanted criminal(s) in delinquent networks and targeting the key connector for isolated communities.