The Application of Complex Networks Analysis to Assess Iran's Trade and It's Most Important Trading Partners in Asia

The existing trade models suggest that for tradable goods potential partners can be many, but eventually only one (the one offering the best price) should be selected, therefore relatively few (unidirectional) trade links will appear between countries. If the structure of international trade flows describes as a network, trade link would give rise between countries. This paper exploit recently-developed indicators based on network analysis such as node-degree, node-strength and node-disparity, and second-degree characteristics such as node-clustering and centrality indicators to investigate the pattern of international trade pattern followed by Iran and its Asian partner. The results of this study show that East Asian countries, have had a greater increase in the number of trade partners. Iran and its trading partners in Asia, is growing trade links with countries that have more trading partners. Nearest neighbor degree index show that selected countries are looking to improve relations with countries that have more similarities with his own country. Based on the centrality, it was found that only China with the centrality index of .97 is in the core of global trade network. Emirates, Taiwan, Korea and Thailand respectively with values of .94, .92, .94 and .91 are in the inner-periphery and Turkey with a value of 0.87 is in secondary-periphery. Iran with a value of 0.72 is in outside of the global trade network