Some interesting maps showing world connectivity with surprising findings! The Amazon is as well-connected by ground travel as Quebec.
Some interesting links on the topic of networks and development and growth:
1) maps of business networks : www.xigit.net and www.orgnet.com. How can this affect the nature and structure of businesses?
2) social networks. How could this affect development policy?
3) specialization and export behaviour. Very cool project. How could this affect growth? But how should it affect policy?
The body of literature found in (quantitative) sociological network analysis could also deliver some interesting insights for development policy. I remember the seminal paper by Kapferer (1972) who analyzed interactions among Zambian workers and the formation of bargaining power to drive up wages.
ReplyDeleteBefore coming to LSE I have also played around with algorithms to identify "key players" within a network (see http://www.guox.de/78x78.gif and http://www.guox.de/252x252.gif for examples of my FB crawl i generated a while ago). targeting these "key players" in developmental interventions could be a very cost-effective way to spread the intervention (new fertilizer utilization, health education etc.). But then again, collecting the data in developing countries could be quite a tedious task.
But we have better and better computing power, so it's a hell lot of fun to visualize all these data. But let me guess, there is yet another branch in econ, errr.. NETWORK economics? ;)