Patterns of International Trade and a Nation's Wealth

Authored by Moon-Yong Cha, Jae Woo Lee, Deok-Sun Lee

Date Published: 2010-03

DOI: 10.3938/jkps.56.998

Sponsors: No sponsors listed

Platforms: No platforms listed

Model Documentation: Other Narrative Mathematical description

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

The characteristics of global wealth distributions are correlated with the patterns of international trade. TO understand this relationship, we analyzed data sets on world trade and the gross domestic products (GDP) of 190 countries from 1950 to 2000. We found that trade volumes and wealth were unevenly distributed and that they were positively correlated. Interestingly, the trade volumes turn out to be more strongly affected by the wealth of the importing countries than that of the exporting ones, which may be relevant to the wealth distribution. We set up and simulated a simple agent-based model for money-exchange systems and found that broad wealth distributions could emerge under an asymmetric money flow.

Tags

Agent-based model Wealth distribution World-trade web