Consumer behaviour is influenced through global factors, such as advertising and price setting, and local factors, via a network of social imitation. This Study Group problem explored how to detect the presence of social imitation networks in consumer transaction data and how to extend and validate agent-based models to include social imitation. The Study Group applied recent results in agent-based modelling and managed to detect the presence of a social imitation network in a dataset of soap-buying by Swiss customers of an online supermarket.

Problem presented by
Iqbal Adjali, Unilever

Study Group contributors
Damien Challet (University of Oxford)
Andreas Krause (University of Bath)
Eddie Wilson (University of Bristol)