IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/physics-0611159.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Phase transition in the globalization of trade

Author

Listed:
  • M. Angeles Serrano

Abstract

Globalization processes interweave economic structures at a worldwide scale, trade playing a central role as one of the elemental channels of interaction among countries. Despite the significance of such phenomena, measuring economic globalization still remains an open problem. More quantitative treatments could improve the understanding of globalization at the same time that help a formal basis for comparative economic history. In this letter, we investigate the time evolution of the statistical properties of bilateral trade imbalances between countries in the trade system. We measure their cumulative probability distribution at different moments in time to discover a sudden transition circa 1960 from a regime where the distribution was always represented by a steady characteristic function to a new state where the distribution dilates as time goes on. This suggests that the rule that was governing the statistical behavior of bilateral trade imbalances until the 60's abruptly changed to a new form persistent in the last decades. In the new regime, the figures for the different years collapse into a universal master curve when rescaled by the corresponding global gross domestic product value. This coupling points to an increased interdependence of world economies and its onset corresponds in time with the starting of the last globalization wave.

Suggested Citation

  • M. Angeles Serrano, 2006. "Phase transition in the globalization of trade," Papers physics/0611159, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2007.
  • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:physics/0611159
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0611159
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bergstrand, Jeffrey H, 1985. "The Gravity Equation in International Trade: Some Microeconomic Foundations and Empirical Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(3), pages 474-481, August.
    2. Richard Baldwin & Philippe Martin, 1999. "Two Waves of Globalisation: Superficial Similarities, Fundamental Differences," Post-Print hal-03417560, HAL.
    3. Paul Krugman, 1995. "Growing World Trade: Causes and Consequences," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(1, 25th A), pages 327-377.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. M. Serrano & Marián Boguñá & Alessandro Vespignani, 2007. "Patterns of dominant flows in the world trade web," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 2(2), pages 111-124, December.
    2. Peter A.G. van Bergeijk, 2010. "On the Brink of Deglobalization," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14122.
    3. Foti, Nicholas J. & Pauls, Scott & Rockmore, Daniel N., 2013. "Stability of the World Trade Web over time – An extinction analysis," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 1889-1910.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marco Dueñas & Giorgio Fagiolo, 2013. "Modeling the International-Trade Network: a gravity approach," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 8(1), pages 155-178, April.
    2. Branko Milanovic, 2003. "Income Convergence During The Disintegration Of The World Economy 1919-39," Economic History 0303002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Roger White, 2010. "Migration and International Trade," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13670.
    4. Iván Arribas & Francisco Pérez & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2014. "The dynamics of international trade integration: 1967–2004," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 46(1), pages 19-41, February.
    5. Michael D. Bordo & Barry Eichengreen & Douglas A. Irwin, 1999. "Is Globalization Today Really Different than Globalization a Hunderd Years Ago?," NBER Working Papers 7195, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Mika Saito, 2004. "Armington elasticities in intermediate inputs trade: a problem in using multilateral trade data," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1097-1117, November.
    7. Raúl Serrano & Vicente Pinilla, 2014. "New directions of trade for the agri-food industry: a disaggregated approach for different income countries, 1963–2000," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 23(1), pages 1-22, December.
    8. Jonathan Perraton, 2019. "The scope and implications of globalisation," Chapters, in: Jonathan Michie (ed.), The Handbook of Globalisation, Third Edition, chapter 3, pages 50-76, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Michael C. Burda & Barbara Dluhosch, 2002. "Fragmentation, Globalisation and Labour Markets," International Economic Association Series, in: David Greenaway & Richard Upward & Katharine Wakelin (ed.), Trade, Investment, Migration and Labour Market Adjustment, chapter 4, pages 47-65, Palgrave Macmillan.
    10. Toshihiro Okubo, 2009. "Firm heterogeneity and Ricardian comparative advantage within and across sectors," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 38(3), pages 533-559, March.
    11. Pinilla, Vicente & Serrano, Raúl, 2008. "The Agricultural and Food Trade in the First Globalization: Spanish Table Wine Exports 1871 to 1935 – A Case Study," Journal of Wine Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 132-148, January.
    12. Fink, Carsten & Mattoo, Aaditya & Neagu, Ileana Cristina, 2005. "Assessing the impact of communication costs on international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 428-445, December.
    13. Marchant, Mary A. & Kumar, Sanjeev, 2004. "Demand Determinants For U.S. Processed Food Exports By Emerging/Low And Middle-Income Countries," 2004 Annual meeting, August 1-4, Denver, CO 20276, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    14. Jolanda Peeters & Albert de Vaal, 2003. "Explaining the Wage Gap: Intra-Industry Trade, Services Linkages and Falling Transportation Costs," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 1(3), pages 251-280, December.
    15. Börje Johansson & Desirée Nilsson, 2012. "Globalisation and Distribution of Exports," Chapters, in: Charlie Karlsson & Börje Johansson & Roger R. Stough (ed.), The Regional Economics of Knowledge and Talent, chapter 12, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Miguel Tinoco-Zermeño & Francisco Venegas-Martínez & Víctor Torres-Preciado, 2014. "Growth, bank credit, and inflation in Mexico: evidence from an ARDL-bounds testing approach," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 23(1), pages 1-22, December.
    17. Michael C. Burda & Barbara Dluhosch, 2002. "Cost Competition, Fragmentation, and Globalization," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(3), pages 424-441, August.
    18. Paola Montero Ledezma, 2017. "The Growth of World Trade: The Robustness of the Evidence," Investigación & Desarrollo, Universidad Privada Boliviana, vol. 2(1), pages 5-19.
    19. Terborgh, Andrew G., 2003. "The post-war rise of world trade: does the Bretton Woods System deserve credit?," Economic History Working Papers 22351, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    20. Baier, Scott L. & Bergstrand, Jeffrey H., 2001. "The growth of world trade: tariffs, transport costs, and income similarity," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 1-27, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:physics/0611159. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.