RESILIENCE MECHANISMS OF THE EUROPEAN TRADE NETWORK DURING THE PANDEMIC

Subject and purpose of work: The economic crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic was fundamentally different from those of the past, with unforeseen implication on supply chains and European trade. As the literature regarding the pandemic is vast bibliometric techniques were used to find the most influential themes and authors. The aim of this paper is to test if cascading failure is possible when shocks arise in European trade. Materials and methods: To characterise the European commerce, network analysis was employed using Eurostat data of imports and exports in the following years: 2018, 2019 and 2020. Trade value indices were also used to characterised European trade during the pandemic and Enterprise Survey run by World Bank for in-depth, cross economies comparisons. Results: The results from the network analysis characterise the compactness of the network, showing that the European trade network is characterised by robustness. Conclusions: Cascading failure has a low probability of occurrence.

研究主题与研究目的：新冠疫情引发的经济危机与过往历次经济危机存在本质差异，其对供应链及欧洲贸易产生了难以预见的影响。鉴于当前疫情相关研究文献体量庞大，本研究采用文献计量学方法，以识别最具影响力的研究主题与核心作者。本文旨在验证：当欧洲贸易遭遇冲击时，是否可能发生级联失效（cascading failure）。
材料与方法：为刻画欧洲贸易网络特征，本研究采用欧盟统计局（Eurostat）2018、2019及2020年的进出口数据开展网络分析。同时，本研究还引入贸易价值指数，以刻画疫情期间欧洲贸易的运行特征；并采用世界银行（World Bank）开展的企业调查数据，进行跨经济体的深度对比分析。
研究结果：网络分析结果刻画了欧洲贸易网络的紧密性特征，结果表明该贸易网络具备稳健性。
研究结论：级联失效的发生概率极低。