Topology of the World Trade Web

TL;DR

This paper provides the first empirical analysis of the world trade web as a complex network, revealing properties like scale-free distribution, small-world features, and degree correlations, highlighting its complexity beyond classical models.

Contribution

It is the first to empirically characterize the world trade web as a complex network with detailed properties.

Findings

Displays scale-free degree distribution

Exhibits small-world properties

Shows degree-degree correlations

Abstract

Economy, and consequently trade, is a fundamental part of human social organization which, until now, has not been studied within the network modelling framework. Networks are mathematical tools used in the modelling of a wide variety of systems in social and natural science. Examples of these networks range from metabolic and cell networks to technological webs. Here we present the first empirical characterization of the world trade web, that is, the network built upon the trade relationships between different countries in the world. This network displays the typical properties of complex networks, namely, scale-free degree distribution, the {\it small world} property, a high clustering coefficient and, in addition, degree-degree correlation between different vertices. All these properties make the world trade web a complex network, which is far from being well-described through a classical random network description.