6. Statistical Models for Network Graphs

The network models discussed in the previous chapter serve a variety of useful purposes. Yet for the purpose of statistical model building, they come up short. Indeed, as Robins and Morris [1] write, “A good [statistical network graph] model needs to be both estimable from data and a reasonable representation of that data, to be theoretically plausible about the type of effects that might have produced the network, and to be amenable to examining which competing effects might be the best explanation of the data.” None of the models we have seen up until this point are really intended to meet such criteria.