Risks and crisis propagation in global palladium trade network: Implications for critical resource supply chain security

Palladium, essential in manufacturing industries and sustainable development, faces supply stability threats due to its concentrated geographical distribution and global supply–demand mismatch. This study employs complex network analysis and the cascading failure model to assess the supply chain security of the global palladium trade network during 1990–2023. The results show that the network structure is shaped by multiple factors including geopolitics, economic climates, and industrial technology. A notable decrease in the concentration of palladium supply has been observed, with higher network densities, average clustering coefficients, and shorter path lengths indicating the network's enhanced aggregation, transmission efficiency and overall resistance ability to risks. However, the recent intensification of global geopolitical situations has led to a trend of reconfiguration and isolation, progressively partitioning the network into communities of North America, Western Europe, and Russia-East Asia, while elevating the geographical proximity as a crucial factor in trade. Despite the fact that Russia and South Africa, as major producers and suppliers of palladium, play significant roles in the spreading of supply chain crises, the central status of the network remains dominated by palladium consumers and transit countries. The risk matrix assessment demonstrates that supply risks have declined more substantially than vulnerabilities, revealing that the improvements in palladium's supply chain security are more dependent on mitigating the severity of a potential supply disruption rather than its likelihood. This study serves to integrate the dynamic perspective of crisis propagation into the evaluation of supply chain security, approaching a scenario closer to reality.