Complex networks to model the economic globalization process

The paper analyses the effects of the process of globalization not only in economic terms, but rather the profound change in the structural properties of the socio-economic networks towards more complexity (more connectivity, more interactions, faster changes and greater uncertainties). We apply network metrics to international trade data and show a clear trend towards a rise of complexity in the patterns of global economic exchanges. We suggest that the observed increase in scale and connectivity of the common economic networks induces greater uncertainties and risks of large-scale instabilities and propose some efficient means to manage network complexity based on efficient models.