Random Networks with Heterogeneous Reciprocity

Abstract: Users of social networks display diversified behavior and online habits. For instance, a user's tendency to reply to a post can depend on the user and the person posting. For convenience, we group users into aggregated behavioral patterns, focusing here on the tendency to reply to or reciprocate messages. The reciprocity feature in social networks reflects the information exchange among users. We study the properties of a preferential attachment model with heterogeneous reciprocity levels, give the growth rate of model edge counts, and prove convergence of empirical degree frequencies to a limiting distribution. This limiting distribution is not only multivariate regularly varying, but also has the property of hidden regular variation.