Exponential Family Random Network Models

Ian Fellows
M.S., 2012
Advisor: Mark Handcock

Random graphs, where the presence of connections between nodes are considered random variables, have wide applicability in the social sciences. Exponentialfamily Random Graph Models (ERGM) have shown themselves to be a useful class of models for representing complex social phenomena. We generalize ERGM by also modeling nodal attributes as random variates, thus creating a random model of the full network, which we call Exponential-family Random Network Models (ERNM). We demonstrate how this framework allows a new formulation for logistic regression in network data. We develop likelihood-based inference for the model in the case of a fully observed network and an MCMC algorithm to implement it.

We then develop a theory of inference for ERNM when only part of the network is observed, as well as specifc methodology for missing data, including nonignorable mechanisms for network-based sampling designs and for latent class models. We also consider contact tracing sampling designs which are of considerable importance to infectious disease epidemiology and public health. This culminates in a treatment of respondent driven sampling (RDS), which is a widely used link tracing design.

2012