Trade Network Analysis

Trade network analysis studies international trade as a weighted, directed graph in which states are nodes and trade flows are edges, then characterizes its structure and models how ties form. It moves beyond the standard dyadic gravity model by treating trade relationships as interdependent — a state's trade with one partner depends on the wider web of trade — and uses network science and inferential models such as latent space models (Ward, Ahlquist, and Rozenas 2013) to capture this dependence, identify hubs and blocs, and explain the architecture of the world trade system.