Network externalities (where the value of a practice is a function of network alters that have already adopted the practice) are mechanisms that exacerbate social inequality under the condition of homophily (where advantaged individuals poised to be primary adopters are socially connected to other advantaged individuals). The authors use an agent-based model of diffusion on a real-life population for empirical illustration and, thus, do not consider consolidation (correlation between traits), a population parameter that shapes network structure and diffusion. Using an agent-based model, this article shows that prior findings linking homophily to segregated social ties and to differential diffusion outcomes are contingent on high levels of consolidation. Homophily, under low consolidation, is not sufficient to exacerbate existing differences in adoption probabilities across groups and can even end up alleviating intergroup inequality by facilitating diffusion.

网络外部（其中实践的值是网络涂改的已经采用的做法的函数）是加剧社会不平等的条件下机制同质（其中有利个人有望成为主要采用者社交连接到其他有利的个体） . 作者在现实生活中使用基于代理的扩散模型进行实证说明，因此不考虑合并（性状之间的相关性），一个塑造网络结构和扩散的人口参数。本文使用基于代理的模型表明，先前的发现将同质性与隔离的社会联系和差异扩散结果联系起来，取决于高度整合。在低整合度下，同质化不足以加剧不同群体采用概率的现有差异，甚至可能最终通过促进扩散来缓解群体间不平等。