Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Network Competition And Team Chemistry In The Nba, William C. Horrace, Hyunseok Jung, Shane Sanders

Center for Policy Research

We consider a heterogeneous social interaction model where agents interact with peers within their own network but also interact with agents across other (non-peer) networks. To address potential endogeneity in the networks, we assume that each network has a central planner who makes strategic network decisions based on observable and unobservable characteristics of the peers in her charge. The model forms a simultaneous equation system that can be estimated by Quasi-Maximum Likelihood. We apply a restricted version of our model to data on National Basketball Association games, where agents are players, networks are individual teams organized by coaches, and competition …