Maximum likelihood estimation for social network dynamics

摘要

A model for network panel data is presented assuming that the observed data are discrete observations of a continuous time Markov process on the space of all directed graphs on a given node set in which Network dynamics is interpreted as being generated by the choices made by social actors, represented by the nodes in the graph. An algorithm is presented for ML estimator which, for small data sets, is more efficient than the earlier proposed method of moments (Mo M) estimator. (22 refs.)