Analysis and dynamics of the international coffee trade network

Abstract

We employ network theory to study the structure, topology, and spectral properties of the coffee trade network. Data from the world trade organization is used to create a year-wise network of coffee trade from 1996 to 2017. More than 82% of world countries participate in the coffee trade network but only 3% of countries control more than 90% of international trade. The networks are very sparse operating at less than 10% of its efficiency. The coffee network shows scale-free behavior. Spectral analysis on the network is performed which shows that the eigenvalue dynamics of adjacency and Laplacian matrices can capture the crisis and stress period of the global economy.