Evolution of community structure in the world trade web

In this note we study the bilateral merchandise trade flows between 186 countries over the 1948-2005 period using data from the International Monetary Fund. We use the network visualization package Pajek to identify network structure and behavior across thresholds and over time. In particular, we focus on the evolution of trade islands in a world trade network in which countries are linked with directed edges weighted according to the fraction of total dollars sent from one country to another. We find mixed evidence for globalization.