Hamilton Institute Seminar

Tuesday, April 9, 2019 - 13:00 to 14:00
Hamilton Institute Seminar Room 317, 3rd Floor Eolas Building, North Campus, Maynooth University

Speaker: ​Professor George Iosifidis, School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin

Title: "The Black Box of Cooperative Networks"

Abstract: From food sharing in hunter-gatherer societies to modern sharing-economy mobile apps, cooperation and exchange of resources has the potential to solve important economic and social problems. But how do humans make such sharing decisions? How efficient is the resource (re)distribution when there are network constraints? And how can we further improve it? Starting from a fundamental theoretical model of cooperative networks, we will characterize the expected sharing equilibriums and the impact of the network graph; present our findings from a sharing-economy behavioral experiment involving 2K participants; and conclude with the analysis of a unique dataset from a digital currency in Italy, identifying network motifs that foster local trading.  

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Biography: George Iosifidis is an Assistant Professor with Trinity College Dublin, School of Computer Science and Statistics. He obtained his Ph.D. (2012) from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Thessaly, Greece, and holds an engineering diploma in avionics and quality control. His research interests lie in the area of network optimisation and network economics with applications to wireless networks, edge computing, and the sharing economy.