Measuring economies’ pivotability on the global value chain under the perspective of inter-country input–output network

Abstract

Under the dual background of trade disputes between China and the United States and the epidemic of 2019 novel coronavirus, the existing Global Value Chain (GVC) division and trading system are facing unprecedented impact. This paper reinforces the present studies on international trade by analyzing the fragments of GVC, which are made of numerous Inter-Country Input–Output (ICIO) relations. We first redefine the inter-country and inter-sector propagating process of intermediate goods, coming up with the concept of Strongest Relevance Path Length (SRPL) based on Revised Floyd–Warshall Algorithm (RFWA). Second, enlightened by betweenness centrality, we introduce Weighted Betweenness Centrality of Edge based on RFWA to measure the Value-Added Pivotability of Input–Output Relations, which brings forth pivotability at domestic, international, and global levels. The results show how much a given country can influence the world economic pattern by linking worldwide upstream and downstream industrial sectors, be it at home or abroad. Also, we can try to explain what is the cause of the phenomenon that the economic influence of nations is trading off and taking turns with all sorts of local or even global evens happening.