Shen Bin, Zhang Jiang, Li Yixiao, Zheng Qiuhua, Li Xingsen
Ningbo Institute of Technology, Zhejiang University, Ningbo, Zhejiang, China.
School of Systems Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
PLoS One. 2015 Nov 16;10(11):e0142936. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0142936. eCollection 2015.
This paper models and analyzes international trade flows using open flow networks (OFNs) with the approaches of flow distances, which provide a novel perspective and effective tools for the study of international trade. We discuss the establishment of OFNs of international trade from two coupled viewpoints: the viewpoint of trading commodity flow and that of money flow. Based on the novel model with flow distance approaches, meaningful insights are gained. First, by introducing the concepts of trade trophic levels and niches, countries' roles and positions in the global supply chains (or value-added chains) can be evaluated quantitatively. We find that the distributions of trading "trophic levels" have the similar clustering pattern for different types of commodities, and summarize some regularities between money flow and commodity flow viewpoints. Second, we find that active and competitive countries trade a wide spectrum of products, while inactive and underdeveloped countries trade a limited variety of products. Besides, some abnormal countries import many types of goods, which the vast majority of countries do not need to import. Third, harmonic node centrality is proposed and we find the phenomenon of centrality stratification. All the results illustrate the usefulness of the model of OFNs with its network approaches for investigating international trade flows.
本文使用开放流网络（OFN）并采用流距离方法对国际贸易流进行建模和分析，为国际贸易研究提供了新颖的视角和有效的工具。我们从两个相互关联的视角讨论国际贸易OFN的建立：贸易商品流视角和货币流视角。基于具有流距离方法的新模型，我们获得了有意义的见解。首先，通过引入贸易营养级和生态位的概念，可以定量评估各国在全球供应链（或价值链）中的角色和地位。我们发现，不同类型商品的贸易“营养级”分布具有相似的聚类模式，并总结了货币流视角和商品流视角之间的一些规律。其次，我们发现活跃且有竞争力的国家交易广泛的产品，而不活跃和欠发达国家交易的产品种类有限。此外，一些异常国家进口许多其他绝大多数国家无需进口的商品类型。第三，我们提出了调和节点中心性，并发现了中心性分层现象。所有结果都说明了OFN模型及其网络方法在研究国际贸易流方面的有用性。
