Achievement

Kate Anderson completed her dissertation in economics. She studied models in which individuals with heterogeneous skill sets collaborate to solve problems. She shows that the number of problems an individual solves is a supermodular function of her set of skills, and cannot be determined by pricing her skills individually. She then looks at the network formed by the collaborative links between problem solvers. An individual's position in this network reflects the demand for her skills as a problem solver, and the overall structure of the network reflects the nature of the problem-solving community. Finally, she shows that the degree distribution of the network will be fat-tailed - that is, a small number of players solve the vast majority of the problems. This results holds empirically.