The state’s position in international agricultural commodity trade: A complex network

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to apply an analysis of complex networks to empirically research international agricultural commodity trade and countries’ trading relations. The structure of global agricultural commodity trade is quantitatively described and analysed.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on statistical physics and graph theory, the research paradigm of a complex network, which has sprung up in the last decade, provides us with new global perspective to discuss the topic of international trade, especially agricultural commodity trade. In this paper, the authors engage in the issue of countries’ positions in international agricultural commodity trade using the latest complex network theories. The authors at first time introduce the improved bootstrap percolation to simulate cascading influences following the breaking down of bilateral agricultural commodity trade relations.

Findings

On a mid-level structure, countries are classified into three communities that reflect the structure of the “core/periphery” using the weighted extremal optimisation algorithm and the coarse graining process. On a micro-level, countries’ rankings are provided with the aid of network’s node centralities, which presents world agricultural commodity trade as a closed, imbalanced, diversified and multi-polar development.

Originality/value

The authors at first time introduce the improved bootstrap percolation to simulate cascading influences following the breaking down of bilateral agricultural commodity trade relations.

Citation

Cai, H. and Song, Y. (2016), "The state’s position in international agricultural commodity trade: A complex network", China Agricultural Economic Review, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 430-442. https://doi.org/10.1108/CAER-02-2016-0032