Trade Links Research Articles

The evolution of global soybean trade network pattern based on complex network

ABSTRACT In this paper, a global soybean trade network (GSTN) is constructed based on the international trade data from 1987 to 2020. The results are as follow: (1) From 1987 to 2020, the scale of the network continued to expand, the number of trading countries continued to increase, and the trade links between countries gradually deepened. (2) The power function curve of the node degree distribution shows that the GSTN satisfies the power law distribution, which fits to be a scale-free network. (3) The global soybean export market is highly concentrated. The United States, Brazil and Argentina account for more than 80% of global soybean exports. China is the world’s largest soybean importer. (4) The control ability of core countries in the GSTN has gradually declined, which is shown from that the importance of nodes has gradually weakened, while the trade between peripheral countries is gradually increasing, showing the phenomenon of trade multilateralism. (5) South America has become the global soybean export centre, and Asia has become the global soybean import centre. The trade status of North America has declined, and the overall strength of Africa and Oceania is the weakest.

Unbalanced global vaccine product trade pattern: A network perspective

Mass vaccination is the most cost-effective intervention in response to public health events. Thus, equitable access to vaccine products is essential to ensure global human health. Based on the global vaccine product trade data from 2000 to 2018 and employing social network analysis, this paper explores the unbalanced pattern of global vaccine product trade and assesses the sensitivity interdependence between countries. Overall, the analysis shows that global vaccine product trade links have long been highly concentrated within developed countries in Europe and America. Nevertheless, with the rise of global and regional hub countries, the global vaccine product trade network has begun to evolve from a unipolar structure with the U.S. as the sole core to a multipolar structure with the U.S. and Western European countries as the core. Meanwhile, emerging countries, represented by China and India, are increasingly participating in the global vaccine product trade network and are beginning to play an important role. The formation of this multipolar pattern has provided countries in the Global South with more options for cooperation in the vaccine product trade and reduces the sensitivity interdependence of network periphery countries on core countries, which consequently reduces the global supply risk of vaccine products.

THE TRANS-CASPIAN INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORT ROUTE THROUGH THE CASPIAN REGION

The Trans-Caspian International Transport Route is one of the branches of the Belt & Road Initiative. Its importance is growing for political reasons: the war in Ukraine and the pressure from the US, including on EU allies, to limit Chinese business activity in Europe. If trade links between China and the EU are nevertheless maintained, a TITR with a fulcrum in Azerbaijan could absorb much of the now bottleneck traffic on the northern section of the BRI. Bulgaria will be able to take advantage of this through its infrastructure assets if the EU clarifies its strategy on the BRI and revives the TRACECA programme.

Trade links and return predictability: The Australian evidence

Trade links and return predictability: The Australian evidence

Assessment of Social Effects Generated by Railways

Currently, the efficiency of transport systems, both at national level and while developing regional and interregional trade and cooperation links, is considered to be among most important factors for successful and sustainable economic development. The enhancement of transport systems in many cases implies implementation of large infrastructure projects, supposing major investment and generating a series of economic and social effects. And if a few studies have already been devoted to the economic impact, the social sphere has not yet received due attention. The paper refers to an attempt to fill this gap. The scope of the study regards passenger rail transport that has being dynamically developed in many countries and that is paid much attention in strategic documents on development of transport industry in the Russian Federation. The objective of the study is to identify the positive and negative effects generated by projects for development of railways, and to propose approaches to their quantitative measurement. The methods engaged in the study comprise the analysis of academic sources and methodological materials already developed abroad and in Russia, as well as relevant regulatory documents, including the methodology for assessing the socio-economic effects of transport infrastructure construction projects. This made it possible to systematise the existing social effects of railway transport into groups. The shown examples of monetary assessment of these effects are based on the best foreign practices. The results could be useful to the investors and the public administration for making decisions on funding, as well as for evaluating the effectiveness of transport projects, which could ultimately allow to save budget funds, increase the return on investment and solve several social problems.

Towards Inclusive Growth: Perspective of Regional Spatial Correlation Network in China

China’s economic growth has been impressive, but the persistent income inequality poses a threat to its sustainability. To address this issue, we use the complex network analysis method for the first time to explore the structural characteristics of the regional spatial correlation network of inclusive growth (RSCN) of 26 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) in China from 1999 to 2020. We use exponential random graph models to explore the internal mechanisms and driving factors that shape this network. Our results show that inclusive growth dependencies between regions are widespread and increasing. Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang serve as benchmark regions, while provinces in the middle reach of the Yangtze River play an increasingly important bridging role. The northwestern region mainly acts as a receiving region. Our study identifies transitivity, reciprocity, and high interaction tendency as critical microstructures. Furthermore, we find that infrastructure, digital economy development, financial marketization, fiscal expenditure linkages, and inter-provincial trade linkages are crucial factors in shaping network relationships. Our study provides theoretical support for the development of China’s regional coordinated development strategy and sustainable economic growth policies.

Enduring disembeddedness? Understanding the persistence of trade disconnects in US digital trade policy

<p>The ever-expanding regulatory scope of “new generation” trade agreements has created new linkages, and thus, new spheres of political conflicts opposing advocates of trade liberalization and free trade critics seeking to make globalization more socially responsible. Scholars have provided different explanations to understand the determining factors behind attempts to re-embed trade, but little attention has been given to the persistence of “trade disconnects”—as opposed to trade linkages—between economic issues and social or environmental externalities that, at the domestic level, can hardly be dissociated. This article proposes to analyze the dynamics and factors of what might be described as persistent disconnects or enduring “disembeddedness” in US trade policy-making. To do so, it examines US digital trade policy and its mixed social record by comparing two issues: labor rights and data privacy. This article builds upon recent scholarship on deliberative forms of exclusion in trade policy-making to track the hidden dynamics of “non-decision-making.” It demonstrates that discursive, institutional, inter-scalar, and countermobilizing processes have restricted the terms of political participation and perpetuated a disconnect between digital trade and labor rights, by contrast with the growing trade linkages with data privacy.</p>

The reliability of the trade dependence network in the tungsten industry chain based on percolation

The unbalanced distribution of globe mineral resources can be addressed partly by the worldwide commerce in those resources. To identify significant international trade linkages and assess the reliability of the global tungsten trade, this paper suggests a modified point mutual information (PMI) and percolation approach. To build a directional network of trade dependence between countries (regions) of representative products at each stage of the tungsten industry chain, we calculate the relationships among trade dependence between countries using countries as nodes, trade dependence intensity as connected edges, and dependence intensity as the ability to cope with risk. The percolation process is replicated using various scenarios (risk disruptions) to filter the network's connected edges. The findings indicate that the downstream and overall networks of the tungsten industry chain are more robust to nonsystemic risks than the upstream and midstream trading networks. Furthermore, the countries with significant total imports and exports are near those with high critical link scores. Additionally, a few countries play an essential role in the tungsten industry chain. The critical countries are upstream tungsten-producing countries, including China, Canada, Russia, and Portugal. At the same time, the United States, Germany, and Japan, which rely on a certain level of in-depth processing technology, are critical downstream countries. Finally, increasing the maximum critical link is crucial for enhancing network reliability. Additionally, it is vital to concentrate on the policy directives of countries with high critical link scores because doing so will help the country create relevant policies and plans.

Assessing the structural connectivity of international trade networks along the "Belt and Road".

Assessing the trade network connectivity is essential for understanding the trade network structure, optimizing trade development patterns, and improving uneven trade development along the "Belt and Road" (BRI). From the perspective of connectivity, this paper integrates the frontier algorithms in network science and constructs an analytical framework to identify the mesoscale structures, including the community structure, core-periphery structure, and backbone structure embedded in the network, and further explore the structural connectivity of the BRI trade network. The results show that: (1) The BRI trade network represents a trade pattern of "one superpower, many great powers", with three major trade groups in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Northern Central and Eastern Europe in terms of geographical space. China is the super core of the BRI trade network, and the most considerable trade links are all centred in China. (2) Five distinctive trade blocs have formed in the BRI trade network. Nevertheless, the structure of the trade blocs shows significant geographical proximity, indicating that geographical distance still plays a vital role in the international trade system at the regional scale. (3) The BRI trade network demonstrates a significant core-periphery structure, with apparent trade clustering among the core countries within the trade network. Among them, nine countries led by China constitute the core structure, and the peripheral structure is large, reaching forty-four. (4) The trade links with China constitute the backbone structure of the whole trade network in the BRI region. In addition, the trade links related to energy trade and re-export trade are also crucial components of the BRI backbone structure. Methodologically, the analytical framework proposed for assessing the network structural connectivity has great potential to be widely applied to other disciplines and fields.

Research on Sino-British Trade Efficiency and Potential

On the basis of analyzing the bilateral trade combination, export concentration and complementarity between China and the UK, a stochastic frontier gravity model is used to measure the trade efficiency and potential between China and the UK, and a realization path for China-UK trade cooperation is proposed. It is found that: the bilateral trade volume between China and the UK is steadily increasing, but the growth of UK exports to China is sluggish and the trade deficit is expanding year by year; the trade links between China and the UK are relatively loose, but there is a trend of strengthening; the trade products are more complementary and the types of trade complementary goods between the two countries do not overlap; but the export concentration is high. The trade potential between China and the UK is expanding year by year, reaching 224.9 billion USD by 2019; trade efficiency is steadily increasing, but is significantly constrained by tariff barriers and average turnaround time of imports, while financial and commercial liberalization can significantly improve the trade efficiency between the two countries. It is recommended to strengthen cooperation with the UK in the financial sector, expand imports of service products to the UK, and promote the construction of a free trade zone between the two countries at an appropriate time.

Renminbi Usage in Cross-Border Payments: Regional Patterns and the Role of Swaps Lines and Offshore Clearing Banks

The paper examines the usage of the Renminbi (RMB) as an international payment currency. Globally, the use of RMB remains small, accounting for 2 percent of total cross-border transactions. Using country-level transaction data from Swift** for 2010–21, we find significant regional variations in the use of RMB for cross-border payments. While RMB is little used in some regions, it has gained traction in others, and these cross-country differences have widened over the years. Such differences can be partly explained by an economy’s geographic distance, political distance, and trade linkages with China. However, it also reflects the impact of policy measures by the People’s Bank of China, including establishing bilateral swap lines and offshore clearing banks. Both policy measures helped to address offshore RMB liquidity shortages given China’s overall capital account restrictions, with the offshore clearing banks having a quantitatively larger impact. Our analysis contributes to a better understanding of the growing importance of RMB within the international monetary system.

Structure, robustness and supply risk in the global wind turbine trade network

With the increasingly devastating impacts of climate change, wind energy demand has surged in recent decades, resulting in fierce competition and a complex trade structure in the wind turbine industry. Understanding the hidden risks for the global wind turbine trade network (GWTTN) is of great significance, but the topic has not yet been explored. This study fills this gap by employing complex network methodologies to investigate the GWTTN's structure and supply risks. Structure analyses featuring metrics including topology quantities, communities, and backbones reveal a core–periphery organization and an unbalanced concentration of exports and imports. The unparalleled influence of Europe, weakening of North America, dissolution of European clusters, and rise of Asia have been the main structural characteristics of the network in recent decades. A country disruption simulation, measured by the giant connected component, further manifests the robust yet fragile peculiarity of the GWTTN which implies the difficulty of risk control. Identified by the linear threshold model, the risk transmission path of supply cutoffs indicates the importance of complex trade links and mutual amplification effects in triggering large-scale contagion and market devastation. A redemption simulation strategy setting anti-risk capacity to vary across countries is also proposed to alleviate the aftermath of large-scale disruptions. The results show that enhancement of core countries and interception of key paths can demonstrably suppress supply risk. The policy suggestions based on these systematic investigations have enormous practical implications for the governance and development of the global sustainable energy industry.

Who will dominate the global fossil fuel trade?

Fossil fuels are not distributed evenly throughout the world, and hence the countries rely heavily on international trade to secure energy supply. Characterization of the energy trade network is needed to conduct long-term assessments of energy security. This study proposes a modeling framework to assess the evolution of energy trade under current conditions as well as under future scenarios up to 2050. The total trade of each country is estimated with trade predictive models (TPMs) using key variables. Subsequently, a matrix-balancing method (RAS) is used to estimate the annual bilateral trades. The projected energy trade network in 2050 varies under each shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP) of the future, with annual fossil fuel global trades among countries ranging between 538 and 215 EJ. Canada, USA, Venezuela, and China are projected to dominate the global trade network, with Canada-USA remaining the most dominant fossil fuel trade link up to 2050.

A study on the transmission of trade behavior of global nickel products from the perspective of the industrial chain

Critical Mineral is the important material basis for achieving carbon neutrality. Under a low-carbon scenario, the demand for nickel in the new energy will grow rapidly, which may lead to supply shortages. Under the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the nickel trade changes frequently and the trade will become more complicated. To clarify the risk transmission mechanism, based on the nickel products trade data of UN COMTRADE, this paper combines econometrics and complex network methods to construct the Global Nickel Industry Chain Trade Behavior Transmission Network (GNICTBTN). The research shows that the Main Transmission System of the GNICTBTN includes 18 countries and 25 trade links, of which 6 trade links need to be paid attention to in the middle and early stages of trade changes, and it indicates that nickel resource is at risk of being monopolized by middlemen. This study distinguishes the industrial chain structure of seven key countries, and finds that the relevance of trade links is closely related to trading transmission risk. According to GNICTBTN, we predict that the Russia-Ukraine conflict will affect the developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region and developed countries in Europe and USA in short term, and repeatedly affects the main transmission system for longer.

Prediction of the Potential Trade Relationship of Lithium-Ion Battery’s Main Element Raw Material Minerals Combined with the Local Characteristics of the Trade Network

In recent years, with the rapid development of the lithium-ion battery industry, the massive upstream consumption of mineral raw materials has led to great crises and challenges in balancing global supply and demand. A diversity of trading partners can effectively alleviate the pressure of supply and demand for raw materials; so, it is particularly important for trading countries to find suitable trading partners. This study takes nine important minerals contained in the main element raw materials of lithium-ion batteries as the research object, and the international trade data range from 2011 to 2020. The study combines complex networks and motifs and links prediction methods to predict the potential international trade relations of the nine minerals based on the actual network topology. We summarize three trade link rules as follows. (1) The predicted links have a timeliness requirement, and they generally turn into actual trade links within 3 years. (2) When looking for trading partners, trading countries tend to establish long-term and stable trade relations. (3) The existing trade relations will promote the establishment of predicted trade relations. In addition, we find that successfully predicted links will promote the formation of important motifs in the network. This study can provide a theoretical basis for trading countries to find suitable trading partners and can strengthen the safety of trading countries in the trade of the main element minerals for lithium-ion batteries.

Review: Cabotajes Novohispanos: Espacios y contactos marítimos en torno a la Nueva España, by Guadalupe Pinzón Ríos

Review: <i>Cabotajes Novohispanos: Espacios y contactos marítimos en torno a la Nueva España</i>, by Guadalupe Pinzón Ríos

The Relevance of the Strategic Partnership between the European Union and the Russian Federation in the Sanction Period

The European Union and the Russian Federation are the major global geopoliticalplayers with intensive trade links. Globalization has deepened the interdependence of economies,which plays an important role in the path of their further economic development. The RussianUkrainian conflict has become a driving force in the centrifugal relations between the EU andthe Russian Federation, which resulted in the imposing of the sanctions. The article analyzes theimpact of sanctions on foreign trade between the European Union and the Russian Federation.In addition to the impact of sanctions on trade turnover between the European Union and theRussian Federation, it also evaluates the impact of mineral fuels, which is the essence of the energystrategic partnership, through linear regression. It presents the factors that affect the volume oftheir exports based on extended gravity models,. Although the sanctions did not have such asignificant economic impact, they were an incentive to end the formation of a new contractualframework for trade cooperation. The remedy of the geopolitical context between the EuropeanUnion and the Russian Federation is essential for their economic progress and strengthening itscompetitiveness in the world economy.

How does inter-industry spillover improve the performance of volatility forecasting?

This study aims to investigate whether introducing inter-industry spillover information into the GARCH-MIDAS model improves out-of-sample forecasting attempts. We explore the transmission of volatility across sectors, as well as the reliance on inter-industry business links. Our findings demonstrate strong cross-industry volatility spillovers that are related to the degree of the industry-to-industry trading linkage. We compare the out-of-sample volatility forecasting performance of the spillovers-information-incorporated GARCH-MIDAS model with that of the traditional GARCH model. The empirical results show that the GARCH-MIDAS model outperforms traditional GARCH models. Notably, we discover that good (bad) news is always transferred from the back end of the production process to the front end, meaning that economic growth (decline) is driven by consumption expansion (shrinkage).

Quantifying multi-regional indirect economic losses: An assessment based on the 2021 rainstorm events in China

Quantitative assessment of economic losses from disasters can benefit government decision-making as well as mitigation and adaptation strategies. Here, we identified significant rainstorm events in China in 2021 using an objective identification method and investigated the direct economic losses (DELs) from each event. Then, a loss assessment model was developed to estimate the indirect economic losses (IDELs) from rainstorm events. We found that, in 2021, China experienced 36 major rainstorm events, causing approximately 179.8 billion yuan in DELs. The north of China was severely affected by rainstorms and floods, with Henan, Hebei and Shaanxi being the main loss centers. The assessment of IDELs based on rainstorm events showed a non-linear relationship between direct and indirect losses. The socio-economic impact of the 2021 Henan flood (Event No. 15) was the most serious, with direct and indirect losses of 125.8 billion yuan and 269.1 billion yuan, respectively. The primary industry in Henan was seriously affected, and the impact also spread to Inner Mongolia and Guangdong, causing indirect losses of 23.9 billion and 13.1 billion yuan, respectively. We recommend that the indirect losses resulting from such interregional trade linkages should be considered in catastrophe risk management. Finally, the sensitivity analysis showed that moderate overproduction can reduce the indirect impacts caused by disasters. A more detailed study is required to explore how to determine the appropriate levels of disaster relief, as well as a rational funding allocation mechanism.

Do regional integration and trade linkages promote productivity spillovers? Evidence from the European Union

ABSTRACT This study examines the productivity and efficiency spillovers in the presence of trade linkages in 27 European Union countries from 1990 to 2019. The European Union is one of the largest trading blocs in the world and has implemented costly policies and reforms to improve productivity growth. Meanwhile, trade-induced productivity and efficiency spillovers have often been overlooked in the literature, and examining them could provide further clarity to the productivity puzzle. Using a spatial Durbin model and a bilateral trade matrix, this study estimates a spatial stochastic production frontier model using data from the Penn World Table and the World Integrated Trade Solution. We decompose production frontier estimates to obtain the spillover effects of total factor productivity growth and technical efficiency from a network of bilateral trading partners. Our results provide evidence of productivity and efficiency spillovers; however, the gains are uneven. Policy implications are discussed.