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Soft power and exporters behavior in international trade

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  • Laurent Didier

    (University of Reunion Island)

Abstract

Soft power is a political and economical tool in international relations characterising the competitiveness of a country, its integrity and its attractiveness. The country image helps to promote exchanges and international business through people's perception. These political and economic influence have outcomes by creating positive impressions among foreign countries. I investigate the unexplored relationship between soft power and exporters behavior in international trade. I mainly use two proxies with the BBC-GlobeScan and Pew surveys about people's opinion on exporter countries. I employ a theory-based and robust structural gravity model with aggregate and disaggregated trade data for micro characteristics of exporters. I find evidence that soft power has significant effects on exporting firms behaviors, essentially for some developping countries at the aggregate level of trade. The results are less significant at the disaggregated level.

Suggested Citation

  • Laurent Didier, 2019. "Soft power and exporters behavior in international trade," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(4), pages 2595-2614.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-19-00762
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Steven Yamarik & Mariya Mileva, 2023. "Cultural institutes: Networks and determinants," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(4), pages 1119-1143, April.
    2. Joachim Wagner, 2020. "Soft power and Germany's exports - First evidence from transaction data," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(1), pages 624-631.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    soft power; firms; trade; international relations;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade
    • F5 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy

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