Riccardo Di Clemente — ISC-CNR Roma #
From innovation to diversification: a simple competitive model #
Several attempts have been proposed in order to describe the historical evolution of the bipartite matrix of 
countries export flows patterns. An important standpoint is the modelling of the structure and the evolution of 
products network, a hierarchical forest of products, to propose a model for the origin of the products 
innovation. In the present article, we propose a simple competitive model where countries vie with each other 
to acquire the ability to produce and export new products. The countries will have two developing possibilities 
to expand their export capabilites: innovating, i.e. introducing new nodes in the products networks, or copying 
the productive process of others, i.e. occupying a node already present in the products network. In this way, 
the topology of the products network and the matrix of the exports evolve simultaneously, driven by the 
countries push toward innovation.