News

WINNER OF THE DENIS SARGAN ECONOMETRICS PRIZE
Professor Ismael Mourifié shares the award with co-author Vincent Boucher, for their paper on strategic network formation in large populations
April 17, 2019


Professors Ismael Mourifié (centre) and Vincent Boucher receive the 2017 Denis Sargan Econometrics Prize
from Professor Andrew Chesher (photo: Jaap Abbring)

Ismael Mourifié and Vincent Boucher have won the 2017 Denis Sargan Econometrics Prize for their article “My friend far, far away: a random field approach to exponential random graph models”, which appeared in the October 2017 issue of The Econometrics Journal.

Boucher and Mourifié's article explores the asymptotic properties of strategic models of network formation in very large populations, modelling data from a large social network as an exponential random graph and measuring individual utility functions. They show that it is possible to provide a quick and easy to implement logit-based estimator for the circumstance where distance or differences between individuals results in decline of the payoffs from link formation.

The prize was presented at the Royal Economic Society's 2019 Annual Conference by recent past president Andrew Chesher, William Stanley Jevons Professor of Economics and Economic Measurement at University College London.