Essays on the econometric modelling of temporal networks

Abstract

Graph theory has long been studied in mathematics and probability as a tool for describing dependence between nodes. However, only recently it has been implemented on data, givin birth to the statistical analysis of real networks. The topology of economic and financial networks is remarkably complex: it is generally unobserved, thus requiring adequate inferential procedures for it estimation, moreover not only the nodes, but the structure of dependence itself evolves over time. Statistical and econometric tools for modelling the dynamics of change of the network structure are lacking, despite their increasing requirement in several fields of research. At the same time, with the beginning of the era of “Big data” the size of available datasets is becoming increasingly high and their internal structure is growing in complexity, hampering traditional inferential processes in multiple cases. This thesis aims at contributing to this newborn field of literature which joins probability, economics, physics and sociology by proposing novel statistical and econometric methodologies for the study of the temporal evolution of network structures of medium-high dimension.