Discovering preferential patterns in sectoral trade networks

We analyze the patterns of import/export bilateral relations, with the aim of assessing the relevance and shape of preferentiality in countries trade decisions. Preferentiality here is defined as the tendency to concentrate trade on one or few partners. With this purpose, we adopt a systemic approach through the use of the tools of complex network analysis. In particular, we apply a pattern detection approach based on community and pseudocommunity analysis, in order to highlight the groups of countries within which most of members trade occur. The method is applied to two intra-industry trade networks consisting of 221 countries, relative to the low-tech Textiles and Textile Articles and the high-tech Electronics sectors for the year 2006, to look at the structure of world trade before the start of the international financial crisis. It turns out that the two networks display some similarities and some differences in preferential trade patterns: they both include few significant communities that define narrow sets of countries trading with each other as preferential destinations markets or supply sources, and they are characterized by the presence of similar hierarchical structures, led by the largest economies. But there are also distinctive features due to the characteristics of the industries examined, in which the organization of production and the destination markets are different. Overall, the extent of preferentiality and partner selection at the sector level confirm the relevance of international trade costs still today, inducing countries to seek the highest efficiency in their trade patterns

La presidenza russa del G20

Analisi degli obiettivi e delle prospettive della presidenza russa del G2

Openness, Similarity in Export Composition and Income Dynamics

2A relevant share of the theoretical and empirical analysis on economic growth has been devoted to finding a specific role for international trade in reinforcing countries’ growth rates. Not as much attention has been dedicated to the role of sectoral composition of export in influencing the effect of trade on income convergence. In this paper we look at this issue along the line of research on multiple regimes and convergence clubs, considering how openness and similarity in export composition among countries can induce convergence in income levels among the same countries. We apply our analysis to the catching-up of income levels of Central and Eastern Europe Countries to the EU benchmark. We explicitly consider the sectoral export patterns of the CEECs by comparing them to those of the 15 old members of the EU, focusing on countries’ specialization as suppliers for the EU market. Our main result is that similarity in export composition has a positive, significant and nonlinear impact on catching-up. Results are robust to controlling for openness and country-size and for investment, schooling, and the quality of institutions.openL. DE BENEDICTIS; TAJOLI LDE BENEDICTIS, Luca; Tajoli, L

Reshaping the structure of the World Trade Network: a pivotal role for China?

In recent years, the global trade landscape has undergone significant changes, particularly in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and more recently as a consequence of Covid-19 pandemic. To understand the structure of international trade and the impact of these changes, this study applies a combination of network analysis and causal inference techniques to the most extensive coverage of available data in terms of time span and spatial extension. The study is conducted in two phases. The first one explores the structure of international trade by providing a comprehensive analysis of the World Trade Network (WTN) from various perspectives, including the identification of key players and clusters of strongly interacting countries. The second phase investigates the impact of the rising role of China on the global structure of the WTN. Overall, the results highlight a structural change in the WTN, evidenced by a variety of network metrics, around China's rapid growth years. Additionally, the reshaping of the WTN is not only accompanied by a significant increase in trade flows between China and its partners, but also by a corresponding decline in trade among non-China-partner countries. These results suggest that China played a pivotal role in the restructuring of the WTN in the first decades of this century. The findings of this study shed light on the interpretation of the rapidly changing landscape of global trade

Countries’ positions in the international global value networks: Centrality and economic performance

The international exchange of goods and services is increasingly organised along global value chains in which the various production stages are carried out at many different locations all over the world. A country can be seen as holding a central position in global trade to the extent that it is involved in a large number of economic transactions with alternative potential suppliers and has a wide access to different important markets. However, the centrality of countries’ positions in the international production of goods and services may vary according to the specific stages of the production process that countries occupy. Here we adopt a network-based perspective, and propose a novel three-faceted measure of centrality that captures countries’ distinct roles at the upstream, midstream, and downstream stages of the international production process. Findings suggest that rankings of countries based on our measures of centrality vary across production stages. While emerging and developing countries tend to secure central positions at upstream and midstream production stages, high-income countries tend to exert prevailing roles at downstream stages. Moreover, rankings based on our measures differ from alternative rankings obtained from traditional measures of market power simply reflecting aggregate trade values. This is especially the case within more traditional industries, such as Textiles and Apparel, in which small and less developed countries can play relevant roles at various stages of the production process

Patterns of variability in the structure of global value chains: a network analysis

Global Value Chains (GVCs) are a feature of the organization of production in many sectors and countries and they deeply affect international trade patterns. How far the separation of production stages—generating increasingly widespread GVCs—can go, is currently a matter of debate. The main focus of this paper is to investigate GVCs at the country-industry level by modelling them through the construction of a specific network and using network analysis tools. In particular, the aim is to propose a network-based measure of GVCs length to assess whether the structure of GVCs has stretched or shrank over time. Analyzing the evolution of these structures is important to better understand the role played by countries in the production chain, with implications also for their fragility or resilience in presence of external shocks. Our measure allows to consider differently shaped GVCs, and the results show that there are relevant differences among sectors and countries in terms of the evolution of GVCs, especially considering direct or indirect links. Overall, we find a general stability over time of GVCs, confirming the importance of the “relational approach” in GVCs. But the shifts in the geographical patterns of the connections also support the view that firms organizing this complex form of production are ready to grasp better opportunities when they appear in the global markets

Using network analysis to study globalization, regionalization, and multi-polarity—Introduction to special section

n this introduction to the special section on globalization, regionalization, and multi-polarity, we review network analysis applications to the study of globalization as a complex and multi-dimensional phenomenon and we explore the frontiers of our knowledge about the network properties of global systems. We focus on the global economic (trade and investment), political, and migration systems