Global connectivity and ethnic fractionalization: new frontiers of global trade agenda

Abstract

International trade is an exchange that involves goods and services between countries or international territories, and it signifies a significant share of gross domestic product. Global trading provides opportunities for the country to show its products and services through imports and exports. While this international event gives rise to a world economy, global connectivity and ethnic heterogeneity play a significant role. This paper aims to determine whether the ruggedness of a country supports international trade and global connectivity and whether the ruggedness of ethnic heterogeneity supports global trading. This paper uses the non-experimental quantitative inferential design utilizing Fractal Analysis to determine the self-similarity of countries engaging in international trade in terms of their global connectivity index and ethnic fractionalization. The International Trade data provided by the World Integrated Trade Solutions and the Global Connectivity Index (GCI) data through Huawei Technologies are plotted in a histogram through Minitab Software to determine the fractality and further apply exponential logarithm. Study shows that global connectivity and ethnic fractionalization induce the fractal characteristics of the countries’ international trade ruggedness. Specific to the behavior is that countries with very high international trade also behave similarly with high global connectivity and very low ethnicity fractionalization. As countries sustain a progressive economic stance, their societies maintain very few ethnic groups to promote social cohesion, much less conflict created by many ethnic groups that vary in their concerns. This paper further explains that only countries with digital economic competitiveness and cultural homogeneity survive robust international trade.