IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sdn/wpaper/4.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Social Network Analysis and informal trade

Author

Listed:
  • Olivier Walther

    (Department of Border Region Studies, University of Southern Denmark)

Abstract

The objective of this article is to show how a formal approach to social networks can be applied to better understand informal trade in developing countries, with a particular focus on Africa. The paper starts by discussing some of the fundamental concepts developed by social network analysis. Through a number of case studies, we show how social network analysis can illuminate the relevant causes of social patterns, the impact of social ties on economic performance, the diffusion of resources and information, and the exercise of power. The paper then examines some of the methodological challenges of social network analysis and how it can be combined with other approaches. The paper finally highlights some of the applications of social network analysis and their implications for trade policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Olivier Walther, 2015. "Social Network Analysis and informal trade," Working Papers 4, University of Southern Denmark, Centre for Border Region Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:sdn:wpaper:4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://static.sdu.dk/mediafiles//B/C/E/%7BBCE47C6D-39B8-42FA-BB31-DA07CBC19367%7DWalther-2015-WB-WP.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Bank, 2013. "Estimating Trade Flows, Describing Trade Relationships, and Identifying Barriers to Cross-Border Trade Between Cameroon and Nigeria," World Bank Publications - Reports 16530, The World Bank Group.
    2. Olivier J. Walther, 2015. "Business, Brokers and Borders: The Structure of West African Trade Networks," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(5), pages 603-620, May.
    3. Marcel Fafchamps, 2002. "Returns to social network capital among traders," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 54(2), pages 173-206, April.
    4. Jean-Philippe Berrou & François Combarnous, 2011. "Testing Lin's Social Capital Theory in an Informal African Urban Economy," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(8), pages 1216-1240, June.
    5. Narayan, Deepa, 1999. "Bonds and bridges : social and poverty," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2167, The World Bank.
    6. Jean-Philippe Berrou & François Combarnous, 2012. "The Personal Networks of Entrepreneurs in an Informal African Urban Economy: Does the ‘Strength of Ties’ Matter?," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 70(1), pages 1-30, July.
    7. Marcel Fafchamps, 2004. "Market Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa: Theory and Evidence," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262062364, December.
    8. Jean-Philippe Berrou & François Combarnous, 2012. "The Personal Networks of Entrepreneurs in an Informal African Urban Economy: Does the ‘Strength of Ties’ Matter?," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 70(1), pages 1-30, July.
    9. Volker Schöer & Neil Rankin & Gareth Roberts, 2014. "Accessing The First Job In A Slack Labour Market: Job Matching In South Africa," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(1), pages 1-22, January.
    10. World Bank, 2012. "Agricultural Innovation Systems : An Investment Sourcebook [Systèmes d’innovation agricole - Guide d'investissement]," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2247, December.
    11. ISHIWATA Ayako & Petr MATOUS & TODO Yasuyuki, 2014. "Effects of Business Networks on Firm Growth in a Cluster of Microenterprises: Evidence from rural Ethiopia," Discussion papers 14014, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    12. Lee Fleming & Charles King & Adam I. Juda, 2007. "Small Worlds and Regional Innovation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(6), pages 938-954, December.
    13. Abigail M. Barr, 2002. "The Functional Diversity and Spillover Effects of Social Capital," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 11(1), pages 90-113, March.
    14. Schiffer, Eva & Hartwich, Frank & Monge, Mario, 2010. "Who has influence in multistakeholder governance systems?," IFPRI discussion papers 964, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    15. John E. Akoten & Keijiro Otsuka, 2007. "From Tailors to Mini-Manufacturers: The Role of Traders in the Performance of Garment Enterprises in Kenya," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 16(4), pages 564-595, August.
    16. Woolcock, Michael & Narayan, Deepa, 2000. "Social Capital: Implications for Development Theory, Research, and Policy," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 15(2), pages 225-249, August.
    17. Mano, Yukichi & Yamano, Takashi & Suzuki, Aya & Matsumoto, Tomoya, 2011. "Local and Personal Networks in Employment and the Development of Labor Markets: Evidence from the Cut Flower Industry in Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(10), pages 1760-1770.
    18. Ayadi, Lotfi & Benjamin, Nancy & Bensassi, Sami & Raballand, Gael, 2013. "Estimating informal trade across Tunisia's land borders," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6731, The World Bank.
    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. Jean-Philippe Berrou & Alain Piveteau & Thibaud Deguilhem & Leo Delpy & Claire Gondard-Delcroix, 2021. "Who Drives if No-one Governs? A Social Network Analysis of Social Protection Policy in Madagascar," Working Papers hal-03180029, HAL.
    2. Jean-Philippe Berrou & Alain Piveteau & Thibaud Deguilhem & Delpy Léo & Claire Gondard-Delcroix, 2020. "Qui pilote si personne ne gouverne ? La politique publique de protection sociale à Madagascar au prisme de l’analyse des réseaux sociaux," Working Papers hal-02918286, HAL.

    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. Walther, Olivier J. & Tenikue, Michel & Trémolières, Marie, 2019. "Economic performance, gender and social networks in West African food systems," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 1-1.
    2. KUEPIE Mathias & TENIKUE Michel & WALTHER Olivier, 2014. "Small businesses performance in West African border regions: Do social networks pay off?," LISER Working Paper Series 2014-06, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    3. Jean-Philippe Berrou & François Combarnous, 2018. "Beyond Solidarity and Accumulation Networks in Urban Informal African Economies," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 30(4), pages 652-675, September.
    4. Getahun Fenta Kebede, 2018. "Social Capital and Entrepreneurial Outcomes: Evidence from Informal Sector Entrepreneurs in Ethiopia," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, vol. 27(2), pages 209-242, September.
    5. Grimm, Michael & Hartwig, Renate & Lay, Jann, 2017. "Does forced solidarity hamper investment in small and micro enterprises?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 827-846.
    6. Christophe Nordman & Laure Pasquier-Doumer, 2013. "Transitions in a West African Labour Market: The Role of Social Networks," Working Papers DT/2013/12, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    7. Olivier J. Walther, 2015. "Business, Brokers and Borders: The Structure of West African Trade Networks," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(5), pages 603-620, May.
    8. Getahun Fenta Kebede, 2020. "Network Locations or Embedded Resources? The Effects of Entrepreneurs’ Social Networks on Informal Enterprise Performance in Ethiopia," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 11(2), pages 630-659, June.
    9. Castañeda Dower, Paul & Gerber, Theodore P. & Weber, Shlomo, 2022. "Firms, kinship networks, and economic growth in the Kyrgyz Republic," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 997-1018.
    10. Nordman, Christophe J. & Pasquier-Doumer, Laure, 2015. "Transitions in a West African labour market: The role of family networks," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 74-85.
    11. Deguilhem, Thibaud & Berrou, Jean-Philippe & Combarnous, François, 2017. "Using your ties to get a worse job? The differential effects of social networks on quality of employment: Evidence from Colombia," MPRA Paper 78628, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. repec:dau:papers:123456789/12204 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Christophe Jalil Nordman, 2016. "Do family and kinship networks support entrepreneurs?," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 262-262, May.
    14. Sommarat Chantarat & Christopher Barrett, 2012. "Social network capital, economic mobility and poverty traps," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(3), pages 299-342, September.
    15. Chi Huu Nguyen & Christophe J. Nordman, 2018. "Household Entrepreneurship and Social Networks: Panel Data Evidence from Vietnam," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(4), pages 594-618, April.
    16. Dufhues, Thomas & Buchenrieder, Gertrud & Fischer, Isabel, 2006. "Social capital and rural development: literature review and current state of the art [Sozialkapital und ländliche Entwicklung: Literaturüberblick und gegenwärtiger Stand der Forschung]," IAMO Discussion Papers 96, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO).
    17. repec:zbw:iamodp:92017 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Nguyen Thi Thu Phuong & Laure Pasquier-Doumer, 2018. "The role of Social Networks on Household Business Performance in Vietnam: A qualitative assessment," Working Papers DT/2018/13, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    19. Lyu, Yibo & He, Binyuan & Zhu, Yuqing & Li, Li, 2019. "Network embeddedness and inbound open innovation practice: The moderating role of technology cluster," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 12-24.
    20. Cristian E Villanueva & Adrianela Angeles & Luz Cecilia Revilla, 2018. "Tying Strong Ties In Informal Entrepreneurship: A Constraint Or An Entrepreneurial Driver?," Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship (JDE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 23(01), pages 1-19, March.
    21. Thibaud Deguilhem & Jean-Philippe Berrou & François Combarnous, 2019. "Using your ties to get a worse job? The differential effects of social networks on quality of employment in Colombia," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 77(4), pages 493-522, October.
    22. repec:sdn:wpaper:1-kopi is not listed on IDEAS
    23. repec:dau:papers:123456789/14463 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. Mogues, Tewodaj & Carter, Michael R., 2003. "Social Capital and Incentive Compatibility: Modelling the Accumulation and Use of Social Collateral," Staff Paper Series 460, University of Wisconsin, Agricultural and Applied Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    social networks; informal trade; development; centrality; brokerage; embeddedness; social capital; Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:sdn:wpaper:4. 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: Olivier J. Walther (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dgsdudk.html .

    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.