Core-periphery structure in sectoral international trade networks: A new approach to an old theory

Abstract

The research on core-periphery structure of global trade from a complex-network perspective has shown that the world system is hierarchically organized into blocks and that countries play different roles in the world economy. Yet, little attention has been paid to investigating whether the sectoral international trade networks conform to a core-periphery structure, hence what is the role of different levels of processing in creating and maintaining structural inequality. This issue is of particular importance given the contemporary focus upon global production networks and reshaping of the international division of labor. With this in mind, we propose a model (LARDEG) from network science to reexamine old theories in economics, such as core-periphery structures in sectoral international trade networks and test whether the global value chains have changed structural positions in terms of the level of processing. The economic background of our model permitting a more accurate sorting of countries into structural positions and the general stability of results have provided for a more solid measurements than has hereto been possible. Our algorithm naturally produces networks with hierarchically nested block structure obtained from an iterative decomposition of the network periphery such that each block represents a vertex set of a maximal size subgraph existing at different levels. The results not only lend support to the previous hierarchical model of the world-system (core, semi-periphery, and periphery) but also find that, depending on particular industry, the number of analytically identifiable blocks could be more than three. We show that 'size effect' is the one that prevails for core block membership at the first hierarchical level, while the GNI per capita is a much poorer proxy for the world-system status. Moreover, the patterns of blocks we label as the second-or third-level 'core' are strongly dependent on distance and geographical proximity. Overall, the various configurations of asymmetrical trade patterns between our blocks and the remarkably stable position of core countries at the top of structure clearly indicate that the rise of global production networks has actually restored a huge and unequal international division of labor splitting the world into 'headquarter' and 'factory' economies.

Comparing World City Networks by Language: A Complex-Network Approach

“…Rombach et al generalize Borgatti and Everett's measures to compute a structure of multiple cores and further evaluate the quality of the cores [51]. Kostoska et al developed a LARDEG (largest degeneracy) model to detect the core-periphery structure in sectoral international trade networks across countries [52]. However, these CP-detection methods have similar limitations of community detection algorithms since they rule out other potential mesoscale structures.…”

Core-periphery structure in networks: a statistical exposition

“…In other words, if you drew another network from the same data generating process it's unlikely to have the same value of m. Randomly re-wiring a network and preserving the degree sequence is another popular choice of a null model but suffers for different reasons. As some authors Masuda, 2017, 2018;Elliott et al, 2020;Kostoska et al, 2020) have pointed out, during the bootstrap step the high degree nodes will again end up being assigned to the core which may lead to low power for the test. Taking this to the extreme, consider a network with ideal CP structure (A ij = 1 if node i or j is in the core and 0 otherwise).…”

Acuerdos comerciales, migratorios, de seguridad y de empleo centro-periferia. Un análisis de ecología-mundo

“…Por lo tanto, en su formulación más simple, el sistema mundial está estructurado en dos partes desiguales en términos de desarrollo y dependencia: el núcleo o centro, que incluye los estados (hiper)desarrollados de Europa, América del Norte, así como algunos otros; y las periferias, que incluyen todos los estados en desarrollo y subdesarrollados del mundo en América Latina, Asia y África (Mabogunje, 1980). Sin embargo, un estudio reciente de Kostoska et al (2020) no sólo aporta pruebas en apoyo del modelo jerárquico tripartito tradicional del sistema mundial, dividido en centro, semiperiferia y periferia, sino que también constata que, dependiendo del sector específico considerado, el número de bloques identificables puede ir más allá de los tres Los acuerdos suscritos entre los estados del centro, la semiperiferia y la periferia en materia de comercio, migración, seguridad y empleo, deben considerarse, en este contexto, como la forma moderna que adoptan los procesos de apropiación de las capacidades vitales de la naturaleza humana y extrahumana. Estos acuerdos no son eventos puntuales, se trata de plataformas de negociación destinadas a definir una visión y un marco de actuación común a todas las partes implicadas mediante el establecimiento de relaciones formalizadas en temas transversales y prioritarios, que permiten mantener abiertos canales de diálogo y una gestión de los conflictos a múltiples niveles a través de cumbres de jefes de estados y gobierno, mesas de negociación ministeriales, de altos funcionarios y subcomisiones técnicas.…”