Graph Methods for Describing the Trade Profile of a Region

Abstract

The work is devoted to the actual problem of building the trade profile of the region and studying the sustainability of regional foreign trade relations by analyzing the results of the region’s foreign economic activity. The aim of the work is to develop a method for describing the trade profile of the region based on graph theory, as well as to assess the possibility of interpreting the behavior of the identified groups of goods from the point of view of analyzing the dynamics of import and export volumes. As the main hypothesis, the paper uses the statement that the network model of describing the foreign trade relations of the region should be balanced with respect to the expectations of suppliers and consumers of products, otherwise there is an imbalance that generates changes in the structure of foreign trade relations. A methodology for the study of foreign economic relations and the development of a trade region based on them using network graphs and a cluster approach is proposed, which makes it possible to identify stable groups of goods and, on their basis, assess the main trends in changes and the potential for the development of foreign economic activity in the region. We consider the features of calculating the adjacency matrix for constructing a graph, as well as identifying groups of vertices connected to each other in order to identify complete subgraphs — clicks, which allows us to identify the main time-stable commodity groups on which the foreign economic activity of the region depends. The described methodology should be used to improve the efficiency of building and describing the trade profile of the region in order to manage the development of foreign economic activity in the region, study the properties of product groups and their characteristics.