Cross-Country Analysis of Interdependence in International Trade Networks

This article aims to perform a reciprocity and dependency analysis on ten pairs of five major countries in the years 1994, 2010, and 2019, using the international trade data. We adopted the reciprocity index and dependence index proposed by Yazawa (preprint 2022) for the analysis of reciprocity and dependence between these nations. We found that linearity exists between these indices among ten pairs of five nations in 2019 as well as 2010. We also found that the increase of dependence tends to decrease reciprocity, resulting in the increase in trade imbalance between two countries. Moreover, this tendency to lose the trade balance by the increase in dependence is getting stronger year by year. As a result, this imbalance contributes to the increase of diplomatic tension between them.