Abstract
A nested structure is a structural feature that is conducive to system stability formed by the coevolution of biological species in mutualistic ecosystems The coopetition relationship and value flow between industrial sectors in the global value chain are similar to the mutualistic ecosystem in nature. That is, the global economic system is always changing to form one dynamic equilibrium after another. In this paper, a nestedness-based analytical framework is used to define the generalist and specialist sectors for the purpose of analyzing the changes in the global supply pattern. We study why the global economic system can reach a stable equilibrium, what the role of different sectors play in the steady status, and how to enhance the stability of the global economic system. In detail, the domestic trade network, export trade network and import trade network of each country are extracted. Then, an econometric model is designed to analyze how the microstructure of the production system affects a country’s macroeconomic performance.
Highlights
College of Economics & Management, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China; International Business School, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing 100089, China
If the economic system is compared to an ecosystem, the generalist feature of an industrial sector can be measured by the number of important IO relationships they establish with other sectors
The larger-degree industrial sectors are defined as Generalist Sector, featuring higher involvement in the global value chain (GVC), widely distributed outputs/inputs and a broader industrial ecological niche
Summary
Nestedness, derived from theoretical ecology and evolutionary biology, is an important structural feature of complex networks. Niche overlap decreasing in the nested structure helps weaken competition and improve species diversity [12], and the greater the nestedness, the stronger the recovery ability of the system after external shocks and the stabler the network structure [13,14,15]. Inspired by this discovery in ecological networks, scholars in socioeconomic networks began to devote themselves to the study of nestedness. Some countermeasures are put forward for economies to achieve a much more stable and healthy state
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