Triadic Pattern Detection on Inter-Industry Production Networks
Triadic motifs are the smallest interconnected building blocks of production networks, playing an important role in the propagation of economic shocks, and are therefore important to map out as is done is this paper.
We analyze both binary and weighted triadic motifs in the Dutch inter-industry production network disaggregated at the level of 187 commodity groups. We introduce appropriate null models that filter out node heterogeneity and the strong effects of link reciprocity. The results suggest that the propagation of economic shocks through production networks is likely to be heterogeneous, as it will depend on the specific triadic motifs that are present in each commodity layer. Second, it implies that statistical bureaus can identify fine-grained information about the structural relationships between different commodities by analyzing triadic motifs at the disaggregated level.
