Hubs and authorities in the world trade network using a weighted HITS algorithm.

Tsuyoshi Deguchi,Misako Takayasu,Hideki Takayasu,Katsuhide Takahashi,Frederic Amblard

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0100338

Abstract

We investigate the economic hubs and authorities of the world trade network (WTN) from to , an era of rapid economic globalization. Using a well-defined weighted hyperlink-induced topic search (HITS) algorithm, we can calculate the values of the weighted HITS hub and authority for each country in a conjugate way. In the context of the WTN, authority values are large for countries with significant imports from large hub countries, and hub values are large for countries with significant exports to high-authority countries. The United States was the largest economic authority in the WTN from to . The authority value of the United States has declined since , and China has now become the largest hub in the WTN. At the same time, China's authority value has grown as China is transforming itself from the “factory of the world” to the “market of the world.” European countries show a tendency to trade mostly within the European Union, which has decreased Europe's hub and authority values. Japan's authority value has increased slowly, while its hub value has declined. These changes are consistent with Japan's transition from being an export-driven economy in its high economic growth era in the latter half of the twentieth century to being a more mature, economically balanced nation.

Highlights

Attempts to describe the patterns of international trade -who sells what to whom- have been a major preoccupation of international economists [1]
Following the development of complex network studies, we introduce two definitions of ‘‘hub’’: the ‘‘hyperlink-induced topic search (HITS) hub,’’ which characterizes the network without weights, and the ‘‘weighted HITS hub,’’ which considers the weights
Share of Importi~ XN jX ~1 Nwji i~1 j~1 wji Feasibility of the weighted HITS in the world trade network (WTN) First, we show that the weighted HITS algorithm is more appropriate than the original HITS algorithm

Summary

Introduction

Attempts to describe the patterns of international trade -who sells what to whom- have been a major preoccupation of international economists [1]. Using the 1962–2000 trade dataset compiled by the United States’ National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Wei and Liu concluded that the ‘‘impact ranking’’ (equivalent to authority ranking) of the United States was decreasing and that the influence of China and Japan was increasing up to 2000 [20]. Following the development of complex network studies, we introduce two definitions of ‘‘hub’’: the ‘‘HITS hub,’’ which characterizes the network without weights, and the ‘‘weighted HITS hub,’’ which considers the weights With these mathematically defined hubs, we can quantitatively discuss the WTN’s economics hubs and their changes over time. Note that these network quantities generally take large values for large countries; they are not proportional to the amount of exports or imports: for some countries, these quantities take larger values depending on the WTN location

Measuring Influence in WTN

Hubs and Authorities in the World Trade Network

Share in the World Imports

Conclusion

Author Contributions