Does human migration affect international trade? A complex-network perspective.
This paper explores the relationships between international human migration and merchandise trade, using a complex-network approach. We firstly compare the topological structure of worldwide networks of human migration and bilateral trade over the period 1960-2000. Next, we ask whether the position of any pair of countries in the migration network affects their bilateral trade flows. We show that: (i) both weighted and binary versions of the networks of international migration and trade are strongly correlated; (ii) such correlations can be mostly explained by country economic/demographic size and geographical distance; and (iii) pairs of countries that are more central in the international-migration network trade more. Our findings suggest that bilateral trade between any two countries is not only affected by the presence of migrants from either countries but also by their relative embeddedness in the complex web of corridors making up the network of international human migration.
Institute of Economics, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy.
Giorgio
G
Fagiolo
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, United States of America.
Marina
M
Mastrorillo
D003132:Commerce / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003710:Demography / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004467:Economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004641:Emigration and Immigration / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D063426:Human Migration / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D038622:Internationality; D011157:Population Dynamics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data