IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v13y2022i1d10.1038_s41467-022-29256-x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dynamics of ranking

Author

Listed:
  • Gerardo Iñiguez

    (Central European University
    Aalto University School of Science
    Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México)

  • Carlos Pineda

    (Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México)

  • Carlos Gershenson

    (Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México
    Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México
    Lakeside Labs GmbH
    Northeastern University)

  • Albert-László Barabási

    (Central European University
    Northeastern University
    Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School)

Abstract

Virtually anything can be and is ranked; people, institutions, countries, words, genes. Rankings reduce complex systems to ordered lists, reflecting the ability of their elements to perform relevant functions, and are being used from socioeconomic policy to knowledge extraction. A century of research has found regularities when temporal rank data is aggregated. Far less is known, however, about how rankings change in time. Here we explore the dynamics of 30 rankings in natural, social, economic, and infrastructural systems, comprising millions of elements and timescales from minutes to centuries. We find that the flux of new elements determines the stability of a ranking: for high flux only the top of the list is stable, otherwise top and bottom are equally stable. We show that two basic mechanisms — displacement and replacement of elements — capture empirical ranking dynamics. The model uncovers two regimes of behavior; fast and large rank changes, or slow diffusion. Our results indicate that the balance between robustness and adaptability in ranked systems might be governed by simple random processes irrespective of system details.

Suggested Citation

  • Gerardo Iñiguez & Carlos Pineda & Carlos Gershenson & Albert-László Barabási, 2022. "Dynamics of ranking," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-7, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-29256-x
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-29256-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29256-x
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-022-29256-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anastasios Noulas & Salvatore Scellato & Renaud Lambiotte & Massimiliano Pontil & Cecilia Mascolo, 2012. "A Tale of Many Cities: Universal Patterns in Human Urban Mobility," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(5), pages 1-10, May.
    2. Cesar A. Hidalgo & Ricardo Hausmann, 2009. "The Building Blocks of Economic Complexity," Papers 0909.3890, arXiv.org.
    3. Marta C. González & César A. Hidalgo & Albert-László Barabási, 2009. "Understanding individual human mobility patterns," Nature, Nature, vol. 458(7235), pages 238-238, March.
    4. Vincent Verbavatz & Marc Barthelemy, 2020. "The growth equation of cities," Nature, Nature, vol. 587(7834), pages 397-401, November.
    5. Zhu, Joe, 2000. "Multi-factor performance measure model with an application to Fortune 500 companies," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 105-124, May.
    6. Garcia-Zorita, Carlos & Rousseau, Ronald & Marugan-Lazaro, Sergio & Sanz-Casado, Elias, 2018. "Ranking dynamics and volatility," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 567-578.
    7. Rosen, Kenneth T. & Resnick, Mitchel, 1980. "The size distribution of cities: An examination of the Pareto law and primacy," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 165-186, September.
    8. Gourab Ghoshal & Albert-László Barabási, 2011. "Ranking stability and super-stable nodes in complex networks," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 2(1), pages 1-7, September.
    9. C. A. Hidalgo & B. Klinger & A. -L. Barabasi & R. Hausmann, 2007. "The Product Space Conditions the Development of Nations," Papers 0708.2090, arXiv.org.
    10. Germinal Cocho & Jorge Flores & Carlos Gershenson & Carlos Pineda & Sergio Sánchez, 2015. "Rank Diversity of Languages: Generic Behavior in Computational Linguistics," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(4), pages 1-12, April.
    11. Laura Alessandretti & Piotr Sapiezynski & Vedran Sekara & Sune Lehmann & Andrea Baronchelli, 2018. "Evidence for a conserved quantity in human mobility," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 2(7), pages 485-491, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wołoszyn, Maciej & Kułakowski, Krzysztof, 2023. "Status achieved in an organization—Rank dynamics," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 610(C).
    2. Hussain, Abid & Drekic, Steve & Cheema, Salman A., 2024. "A relative-rank measure for the rank transformation," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    3. Yang, Alex Jie & Wu, Linwei & Zhang, Qi & Wang, Hao & Deng, Sanhong, 2023. "The k-step h-index in citation networks at the paper, author, and institution levels," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Colin Wessendorf & Alexander Kopka & Dirk Fornahl, 2021. "The impact of the six European Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) on regional knowledge creation," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2127, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Sep 2021.
    2. Qiliang Mao & Xianzhuang Mao, 2021. "Cultural barriers, institutional distance, and spatial spillovers: Evidence from regional industrial evolution in China," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(3), pages 1440-1481, September.
    3. Andrea Flori & Fabrizio Lillo & Fabio Pammolli & Alessandro Spelta, 2021. "Better to stay apart: asset commonality, bipartite network centrality, and investment strategies," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 299(1), pages 177-213, April.
    4. Naima Chrid & Sami Saafi & Mohamed Chakroun, 2021. "Export Upgrading and Economic Growth: a Panel Cointegration and Causality Analysis," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 12(2), pages 811-841, June.
    5. Guido Caldarelli & Matthieu Cristelli & Andrea Gabrielli & Luciano Pietronero & Antonio Scala & Andrea Tacchella, 2012. "A Network Analysis of Countries’ Export Flows: Firm Grounds for the Building Blocks of the Economy," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(10), pages 1-11, October.
    6. Enrico Bergamini & Georg Zachmann, 2020. "Exploring EU’s Regional Potential in Low-Carbon Technologies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-28, December.
    7. Alje van Dam & Koen Frenken, 2019. "Variety, Complexity and Economic Development," Papers 1903.07997, arXiv.org.
    8. Bogang Jun & Aamena Alshamsi & Jian Gao & Cesar A Hidalgo, 2017. "Relatedness, Knowledge Diffusion, and the Evolution of Bilateral Trade," Papers 1709.05392, arXiv.org.
    9. Diogo Ferraz & Fernanda P. S. Falguera & Enzo B. Mariano & Dominik Hartmann, 2021. "Linking Economic Complexity, Diversification, and Industrial Policy with Sustainable Development: A Structured Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-29, January.
    10. Olimpia Neagu, 2019. "The Link between Economic Complexity and Carbon Emissions in the European Union Countries: A Model Based on the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-27, August.
    11. Robert Stewart & Marie Urban & Samantha Duchscherer & Jason Kaufman & April Morton & Gautam Thakur & Jesse Piburn & Jessica Moehl, 2016. "A Bayesian machine learning model for estimating building occupancy from open source data," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 81(3), pages 1929-1956, April.
    12. Balland, Pierre-Alexandre & Broekel, Tom & Diodato, Dario & Giuliani, Elisa & Hausmann, Ricardo & O'Clery, Neave & Rigby, David, 2022. "Reprint of The new paradigm of economic complexity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(8).
    13. Koch, Philipp, 2021. "Economic complexity and growth: Can value-added exports better explain the link?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    14. Alcalá, Francisco & Solaz, Marta, 2018. "International Relocation of Production and Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 13422, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Vu, Trung V., 2020. "Economic complexity and health outcomes: A global perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    16. Patrick Herron & Aashish Mehta & Cong Cao & Timothy Lenoir, 2016. "Research diversification and impact: the case of national nanoscience development," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 629-659, November.
    17. Shana M. Sundstrom & Craig R. Allen & David G. Angeler, 2020. "Scaling and discontinuities in the global economy," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 319-345, April.
    18. Sudeshna Ghosh & Buhari Doğan & Muhlis Can & Muhammad Ibrahim Shah & Nicholas Apergis, 2023. "Does economic structure matter for income inequality?," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 2507-2527, June.
    19. Duygu Buyukyazici & Leonardo Mazzoni & Massimo Riccaboni & Francesco Serti, 2024. "Workplace skills as regional capabilities: relatedness, complexity and industrial diversification of regions," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(3), pages 469-489, March.
    20. Boschma, Ron & Capone, Gianluca, 2015. "Institutions and diversification: Related versus unrelated diversification in a varieties of capitalism framework," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(10), pages 1902-1914.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-29256-x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.