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Are Preferential Agreements Significant for the World Trade Structure? A Network Community Analysis
Author(s) -
Piccardi Carlo,
Tajoli Lucia
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
kyklos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.766
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1467-6435
pISSN - 0023-5962
DOI - 10.1111/kykl.12081
Subject(s) - partition (number theory) , world trade , international trade , aggregate (composite) , preferential attachment , international economics , economics , economic geography , business , complex network , computer science , mathematics , materials science , combinatorics , world wide web , composite material
Summary We assess the impact of preferential trade agreements ( PTAs ) on the structure of world trade by looking for communities in the world trade network ( WTN ), and allowing the presence of preferential trade patterns to emerge endogenously. The finding of significant communities (as defined in the topology of the networks) would imply that trading countries are organized in groups of preferential partners. We use different approaches to analyze communities in the WTN between 1962 and 2008, but all methods agree in finding no evidence of a significant partition, supporting the view that the existing PTAs are not strongly distorting the geography of trade patterns, at least at the aggregate level.