When Murat Sertel asked us whether we would be interested in organizing a special issue of the Review of Economic Design on the formation of networks and groups, we were happy to accept because of the growing research on this important topic. We were also pleasantly surprised at the response to our request for submissions to the special issue, receiving a much larger number of sub­ missions than we had anticipated. In the end we were able to put together two special issues of insightful papers on this topic. Given the growing interest in this topic, we also decided (with encouragement from Murat) to combine the special issues in the form of a book for wider dissemination. However, once we had decided to edit the book, it was natural to move beyond the special issue to include at least some of the papers that have been influential in the literature on the formation of networks. These papers were published in other journals, and we are very grateful to the authors as well as the journals for permission to include these papers in the book.

Inhalt

On the Formation of Networks and Groups.- Graphs and Cooperation in Games.- A Strategic Model of Social and Economic Networks.- Spatial Social Networks.- Stable Networks.- The Stability and Efficiency of Economic and Social Networks.- A Noncooperative Model of Network Formation.- The Stability and Efficiency of Directed Communication Networks.- Endogenous Formation of Links Between Players and of Coalitions: An Application of the Shapley Value.- Link Formation in Cooperative Situations.- Network Formation Models With Costs for Establishing Links.- Network Formation With Sequential Demands.- Coalition Formation in General NTU Games.- A Strategic Analysis of Network Reliability.- A Dynamic Model of Network Formation.- A Theory of Buyer-Seller Networks.- Competition for Goods in Buyer-Seller Networks.- Buyers' and Sellers' Cartels on Markets With Indivisible Goods.- Network Exchange as a Cooperative Game.- Incentive Compatible Reward Schemes for Labour-managed Firms.- Project Evaluation and Organizational Form.- References.