Community structure in the World Trade Network based on communicability distances

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the mesoscale structure of the World Trade Network. In this framework, a specific role is assumed by short- and long-range interactions, and hence by any suitably defined network-based distance between countries. Therefore, we identify clusters through a new procedure that exploits Estrada communicability distance and the vibrational communicability distance, which turn out to be particularly suitable for catching the inner structure of the economic network. The proposed methodology aims at finding the distance threshold that maximizes a specific quality function defined for general metric spaces. Main advantages regard the computational efficiency of the procedure as well as the possibility to inspect intercluster and intracluster properties of the resulting communities. The numerical analysis highlights peculiar relationships between countries and provides a rich set of information that can hardly be achieved within alternative clustering approaches.

The effect of the pandemic on complex socio-economic systems: community detection induced by communicability

“…Formula ( 7) defines a global distance in the multiplex as proportional to the average distance for the whole network. This definition is in line with the results obtained for the monoplex network in Bartesaghi et al (2020) in case of a partition made up of the entire network. In the Appendix A we report another expression of the multiplex total distance.…”

“…Specifically, we compute the Estrada communicability matrix G(ω * ) evaluated in the optimal value ω * obtained as in equation ( 8). Then, for each layer, we follow the approach proposed in Bartesaghi et al (2020) for detect communities in the monoplex case, but in our case the Estrada communicability function of each layer contains not only the intra-layer walks but also the inter-layer ones.…”

“…In this context, the concept of node distance plays an important role, since nodes distant from a given one can influence it while passing through intermediary ones. Recently, Bartesaghi et al (2020) propose an innovative methodology to detect communities based on the Estrada communicability distance (Estrada and Hatano, 2009;Estrada, 2019). Unless the classical Euclidean distance, the proposed measure also considers indirect connections becoming crucial to catch deep interconnections between nodes.…”

International Trade Network: Country centrality and COVID-19 pandemic

“…In this regard, Estrada andHatano (2008, 2009) introduce the concept of communicability, presenting a metric between nodes that takes into consideration long-range interactions between them. An area in which these concepts allow us to gain a deep insight into the hidden structures of the network is properly the World Trade Network (WTN), see Bartesaghi et al (2020). The topology of the WTN has been extensively analyzed over time.…”

“…Indeed, we argue that it is crucial to consider deep interconnections between nodes, in order to capture the strategic commercial links, which can survive beyond a global shock. To this end, we apply the recent methodology proposed by Bartesaghi et al (2020) focusing on the Estrada communicability distance (Estrada and Hatano (2009)). As a result, the analysis of communities performed in 2019 and 2020 shows that the trade network is a resilient structure, adapting itself to a global shock such as a pandemic.…”