Yves Zenou

Professor and the Richard Snape Chair in Business and Economics, Monash University in Melbourne, Australia

Yves Zenou is a Professor and the Richard Snape Chair in Business and Economics at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He was previously a professor of economics at Stockholm University, the Université du Maine, the University of Southampton, UK, and a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Zenou is best known for his “key player” theory. This research hypothesized that targeting certain “key players” in networks, rather than those committing the most crimes, could reduce crime. It uses a data analysis technique that examines social networks and highlights connections, examining their impact on human behavior. This theory was first used to analyze criminal activity but has been used across many different types of networks, including links between firms, research and development networks, friendship networks, and to forecast economic development strategies.

His research is both theoretical and empirical. He has published over 125 academic articles on topics including social interactions and network theory, search and matching theory, urban economics, segregation and discrimination of ethnic minorities, identity and assimilation of immigrants, criminality and education. He has published two books, Economic Analyses of Social Networks and Urban Labor Economics. His research has appeared in Journal of Economic Theory, RAND Journal of Economics, Games and Economic Behavior, American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, Journal of Applied Econometrics, Journal of Urban Economics, Economics Letters, and Journal of Development Economics, among others.

He is currently the Associate Editor of Regional Science and Urban EconomicsJournal of Public Economic TheoryJournal of Urban EconomicsScandinavian Journal of EconomicsIZA Journal of Migration, and Annals of Economics and Statistics. He was previously the Editor of Regional Science and Urban Economics and Associate Editor of the Journal of the European Economic Association.

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