Measuring Economic Globalization: Exploring methods to map the changing structure of world trade.

This paper compares two methodological approaches to world trade analysisâ?”social network analysis and an exponential distance model (combining aspects of log-linear analysis with multidimensional scaling and correspondence analysis). We examine and compare changes in the structure of world trade at two time points: 1980 and 2001. The study addresses two key questions: 1) What methods can we use to assess the impact of changes associated with economic globalization processes? and 2) Do patterns of international trade continue to conform to a core / periphery structure as world systems theorists argue; show evidence of converging as globalization theorists argue; or is there a combination revealing more delimited economic processes? The findings yield some important generalizations. First, we found that the hierarchical nature of the world-system has been remarkably persistent over time in terms of world system zones but that there are important modifications. The presence of Western countries including the US, Canada and many Western European states in the core has been remarkably consistent. What has changed is the number of Asian countriesâ?”including China and the four Asian tigersâ?”that trade at high levels with core members. The pattern suggests a strong triad composed of North America, Europe and Asia form the core. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]