An Axiom System for Feedback Centralities

TL;DR

This paper introduces a unified axiom system that characterizes four feedback centrality measures, enabling comparison and understanding of their fundamental differences and similarities.

Contribution

It is the first to provide a comprehensive axiom system for eigenvector, Katz, Seeley, and PageRank centralities, highlighting their unique properties.

Findings

Each centrality measure is uniquely characterized by a subset of the axioms.

The system unifies four feedback centralities under a common axiomatic framework.

Facilitates comparison and analysis of feedback centrality measures.

Abstract

In recent years, the axiomatic approach to centrality measures has attracted attention in the literature. However, most papers propose a collection of axioms dedicated to one or two considered centrality measures. In result, it is hard to capture the differences and similarities between various measures. In this paper, we propose an axiom system for four classic feedback centralities: Eigenvector centrality, Katz centrality, Seeley index, and PageRank. We prove that each of these four centrality measures can be uniquely characterized with a subset of our axioms. Our system is the first one in the literature that considers all four feedback centralities.