title: The rise of China in the International Trade Network: a community core detection approach.
abstract: Theory of complex networks proved successful in the description of a variety of complex systems ranging from biology to computer science and to economics and finance. Here we use network models to describe the evolution of a particular economic system, namely the International Trade Network (ITN). Previous studies often assume that globalization and regionalization in international trade are contradictory to each other. We re-examine the relationship between globalization and regionalization by viewing the international trade system as an interdependent complex network. We use the modularity optimization method to detect communities and community cores in the ITN during the years 1995-2011. We find rich dynamics over time both inter- and intra-communities. In particular, the Asia-Oceania community disappeared and reemerged over time along with a switch in leadership from Japan to China. We provide a multilevel description of the evolution of the network where the global dynamics (i.e., communities disappear or reemerge) and the regional dynamics (i.e., community core changes between community members) are related. Moreover, simulation results show that the global dynamics can be generated by a simple dynamic-edge-weight mechanism.
authors.affiliation: IMT Institute for Advanced Studies Lucca, Lucca, Italy.
authors.forename: Zhen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy; Linkalab, Complex Systems Computational Laboratory, Cagliari, Italy.
authors.forename: Federica
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Cerina
authors.affiliation: IMT Institute for Advanced Studies Lucca, Lucca, Italy; Linkalab, Complex Systems Computational Laboratory, Cagliari, Italy.
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chessa
authors.affiliation: IMT Institute for Advanced Studies Lucca, Lucca, Italy; Linkalab, Complex Systems Computational Laboratory, Cagliari, Italy; Istituto dei Sistemi Complessi, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Rome, Italy; London Institute for Mathematical Sciences, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Guido
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Caldarelli
authors.affiliation: IMT Institute for Advanced Studies Lucca, Lucca, Italy; Department of Managerial Economics, Strategy and Innovation, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Massimo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Riccaboni
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D002681:China; D004467:Economics; D007391:International Cooperation; D007564:Japan; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D012111:Residence Characteristics