Title: Externalities in Socially-Based Resource Sharing Network,
Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of link formation between a pair of agents
on resource availability of other agents in a social cloud network, which is a
special case of socially-based resource sharing systems. Specifically, we study
the correlation between externalities, network size, and network density.
We first conjecture and experimentally support that if an agent experiences
positive externalities, then its closeness (harmonic centrality measure) should
increase. Next, we show the following for ring networks: in less populated
networks no agent experiences positive externalities; in more populated
networks a set of agents experience positive externalities, and larger the
distance between agents forming a link, more the number of beneficiaries; and
the number of beneficiaries is always less than the number of
non-beneficiaries. Finally, we show that network density is inversely
proportional to positive externalities, and further, it plays a crucial role in
determining the kind of externalities.