A Network Analysis of Countries' Export Flows: Firm Grounds for the Building Blocks of the Economy

作者:Caldarelli Guido; Cristelli Matthieu*; Gabrielli Andrea; Pietronero Luciano; Scala Antonio; Tacchella Andrea
来源:PLos One, 2012, 7(10): e47278.
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0047278

摘要

In this paper we analyze the bipartite network of countries and products from UN data on country production. We define the country-country and product-product projected networks and introduce a novel method of filtering information based on elements' similarity. As a result we find that country clustering reveals unexpected socio-geographic links among the most competing countries. On the same footings the products clustering can be efficiently used for a bottom-up classification of produced goods. Furthermore we mathematically reformulate the "reflections method'' introduced by Hidalgo and Hausmann as a fixpoint problem; such formulation highlights some conceptual weaknesses of the approach. To overcome such an issue, we introduce an alternative methodology (based on biased Markov chains) that allows to rank countries in a conceptually consistent way. Our analysis uncovers a strong non-linear interaction between the diversification of a country and the ubiquity of its products, thus suggesting the possible need of moving towards more efficient and direct non-linear fixpoint algorithms to rank countries and products in the global market.

  • 出版日期2012-10-19