Indirect Influence Assessment in the Context of Retail Food Network

Abstract

We consider an application of long-range interaction centrality (LRIC) to the problem of the influence assessment in the global retail food network. Firstly, we reconstruct an initial graph into the graph of directed intensities based on individual node’s characteristics and possibility of the group influence. Secondly, we apply different models of the indirect influence estimation based on simple paths and random walks. This approach can help us to estimate node-to-node influence in networks. Finally, we aggregate node-to-node influence into the influence index. The model is applied to the food trade network based on the World International Trade Solution database. The results obtained for the global trade by different product commodities are compared with classical centrality measures.