Microscopic, mesoscopic, and macroscopic structural correlations between the international energy “investment–trade” networks based on network motifs

Abstract

In recent years, international energy investment and energy trade activities have developed rapidly. Because energy has commodity and financial product attributes, there is often a correlation between international energy trade and investment. This correlation has regional specificity due to the uneven geographical distribution of energy production and consumption. The existing literature mainly studies the correlation between the international energy “investment–trade” systems from a macroscopic or microscopic perspective. However, the relationship between them among countries from a mesoscopic perspective has not been fully demonstrated. With the development of economic globalization, we need to pay attention to whether the energy trade model of countries can reflect their preference for choosing investment partners and whether the energy investment model can reflect energy trade cooperation. In this paper, by taking the frontier approach of network motifs, we analyzed the correlation between international energy trade and investment from more than 200 economies worldwide from the macroscopic perspective, microscopic perspective, and local structure from a mesoscopic perspective. Meanwhile, we compared the results of the study in 2018 with those in 2022 to obtain the impact of international events on the international energy “investment–trade” networks. We found that 1) the structures of energy trade and investment networks are similar from a macroscopic perspective, which is the basis for exploring the correlation between energy trade and investment. 2) Bilateral cooperation and transaction transmission are important local structures of energy trade and energy investment activities. 3) The formation of an equal and close local structure among economies in energy trade is more likely to be preferred for investment cooperation, and forming a representative local structure with statistical significance among economies in energy investment is more likely to obtain energy trade cooperation. This work innovatively adopts motifs to study the correlation between energy investment and trade, which can help energy investors predict the direction of investment and provide guidance to governments in formulating energy trade policies.