The International Trade Network in Space and Time

Abstract

This paper studies how the structure of the International Trade Network (ITN) changes in geographical space and along time. We employ geographical distance between countries in the world to filter the links in the ITN, building a sequence of sub-networks, each one featuring trade links occurring at similar distance. We then test if the topological properties of ITN subnetworks change as distance increases. We find that distance strongly impacts, in non-linear ways, the topology of the ITN. We show that the ITN is disassortative at long distances while it is assortative at short ones. Similarly, the main determinant of the overall high ITN clustering level are triangular trade triples between geographically close countries. This means that trade partnership choices are differentiated over different distance ranges. Such evidence robustly arises over time and after one controls for the economic size and income of trading partners.

Spatio-Temporal Patterns of the International Merger and Acquisition Network

“…Our results complement recent studies on the geographical properties of international complex networks 16,24 , contributing to the theoretical and empirical debates on the effect of the geographical distance on cross-border M&As.…”

“…This behaviour is observed for all years, except in the year 2010, in which the increase is observed in both the fifth and sixth deciles. The decrease of the averages of link weights is rather moderate compared with the dramatic decrease observed in the case of trade flows 24 . The average of BCC out c ( ) increases very slowly with distance.…”

“…The correlation is especially higher in the case of the GDP, which might imply that variations of M&As across countries could be more closely related to their size rather than to their income. Similarly, these correlations are positive and high in the ITN and in the international financial network (IFN) 10,24 . Finally, we want to test to what extent the IMAN exhibits a structure where countries that are more evolved in M&As are more intensively clustered.…”

“…In contrast, the ITN is dissasortative when links are not restricted to geographical distances 24 . The correlation coefficients between node degree/strength and clustering coefficients are positive and significant for most distance deciles (Fig.…”

The International-Migration Network

“…Finally, more remote countries typically form less intensive triangles, as it is very unlikely that any two of their neighbors are strongly connected between themselves. The second exercise aims at understanding whether assortativity and clustering-connectivity patterns depend on geographical distance [62]. In each year, we partition the distribution of geographical distance into K quantile classes ∆ 1 , .…”