Title
Inferring Personal Economic Status from Social Network Location.
Abstract
It is commonly believed that patterns of social ties affect individuals' economic status. Here we translate this concept into an operational definition at the network level, which allows us to infer the economic well-being of individuals through a measure of their location and influence in the social network. We analyse two large-scale sources: telecommunications and financial data of a whole country's population. Our results show that an individual's location, measured as the optimal collective influence to the structural integrity of the social network, is highly correlated with personal economic status. The observed social network patterns of influence mimic the patterns of economic inequality. For pragmatic use and validation, we carry out a marketing campaign that shows a threefold increase in response rate by targeting individuals identified by our social network metrics as compared to random targeting. Our strategy can also be useful in maximizing the effects of large-scale economic stimulus policies.
Year
DOI
Venue
2017
10.1038/ncomms15227
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Field
DocType
Volume
Population,Social network,Response rate (survey),Biology,Economic inequality,Microeconomics,Genetics,Structural integrity,Interpersonal ties,Operational definition,Socioeconomic status
Journal
8
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
2041-1723
5
0.67
References 
Authors
7
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Shaojun Luo151.01
Flaviano Morone21396.72
Carlos Sarraute310622.64
Matias Travizano450.67
Hernán A. Makse534317.95