How the taxonomy of products drives the economic development of countries

Andrea Zaccaria; Matthieu Cristelli; Andrea Tacchella; Luciano Pietronero

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0113770

How the taxonomy of products drives the economic development of countries

PLoS One. 2014 Dec 8;9(12):e113770. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0113770. eCollection 2014.

Authors

Andrea Zaccaria¹, Matthieu Cristelli¹, Andrea Tacchella², Luciano Pietronero³

Affiliations

¹ ISC-CNR, Via dei Taurini 19, 00185, Roma, Italy.
² ISC-CNR, Via dei Taurini 19, 00185, Roma, Italy; Dipartimento di Fisica, Sapienza Università di Roma, P.le Aldo Moro 2, 00185, Roma, Italy.
³ ISC-CNR, Via dei Taurini 19, 00185, Roma, Italy; Dipartimento di Fisica, Sapienza Università di Roma, P.le Aldo Moro 2, 00185, Roma, Italy; LIMS, London Institute for Mathematical Sciences, 35a South Street Mayfair, London, United Kingdom.

Abstract

We introduce an algorithm able to reconstruct the relevant network structure on which the time evolution of country-product bipartite networks takes place. The significant links are obtained by selecting the largest values of the projected matrix. We first perform a number of tests of this filtering procedure on synthetic cases and a toy model. Then we analyze the bipartite network constituted by countries and exported products, using two databases for a total of almost 50 years. It is then possible to build a hierarchically directed network, in which the taxonomy of products emerges in a natural way. We study the influence of the structure of this taxonomy network on countries' development; in particular, guided by an example taken from the industrialization of South Korea, we link the structure of the taxonomy network to the empirical temporal connections between product activations, finding that the most relevant edges for countries' development are the ones suggested by our network. These results suggest paths in the product space which are easier to achieve, and so can drive countries' policies in the industrialization process.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Algorithms
Economic Development*
Models, Theoretical*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the European project FET-Open GROWTHCOM (grant num. 611272) and the Italian PNR project CRISIS-Lab. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.