IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wsi/gejxxx/v12y2012i04n1524-5861.1895.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cultural Distance and Bilateral Trade

Author

Listed:
  • Teresa L. Cyrus

    (Dalhousie University)

Abstract

This paper examines the extent to which cultural proximity influences, and is influenced by, bilateral trade flows. Variables measuring common language or religion, commonly considered to be measures of cultural proximity, have been found to be highly significant in explaining the volume of trade between countries, but these measures have the distinct disadvantage of being static; they do not change over time. In fact, however, culture does change, possibly in response to exposure to the foreign goods, methods, and ideas brought across borders by trade; the cultural "distance" between two countries can therefore be seen to fall or rise over time. In this paper, responses to World Values Survey questions regarding trust, respect, control, and obedience are used to create a measure of cultural distance. I use this cultural distance variable in gravity regressions and show that more culturally-distant countries trade less, but that more traditional measures of culture are more significant in explaining trade. I then explore the determinants of cultural distance, finding that exports reduce cultural distance.

Suggested Citation

  • Teresa L. Cyrus, 2012. "Cultural Distance and Bilateral Trade," Global Economy Journal (GEJ), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 12(4), pages 1-25, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:wsi:gejxxx:v:12:y:2012:i:04:n:1524-5861.1895
    DOI: 10.1515/1524-5861.1895
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1515/1524-5861.1895
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/1524-5861.1895?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Cyrus Teresa L., 2012. "Cultural Distance and Bilateral Trade," Global Economy Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 12(4), pages 1-25, December.
    2. Shulgin, Sergey & Zinkina, Julia & Korotayev, Andrey, 2017. "“Neighbors in values”: A new dataset of cultural distances between countries based on individuals’ values, and its application to the study of global trade," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 966-985.
    3. repec:abr:oajaas:v:3:y:2021:i:3:p:379-382 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Pham Hoang Linh & Nguyen Khanh Doanh & Nguyen Ngoc Quynh, 2019. "Determinants of Vietnam`s potential trade: a case study of agricultural exports to the European Union," Asian Journal of Agriculture and rural Development, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 9(1), pages 33-46, June.
    5. Linh, Pham Hoang & Doanh, Nguyen Khanh & Quynh, Nguyen Ngoc, 2019. "Determinants of Vietnam's Potential Trade: A Case Study of Agricultural Exports to the European Union," Asian Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development, Asian Economic and Social Society (AESS), vol. 9(01), January.
    6. Yongwei Chen & Wei‐Min Hu & Radek Szulga & Buoyuan Xue, 2018. "Cultural Differences and Interprovincial Trade in China: Effect of Surname Distance and its Mechanisms," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(4), pages 609-631, October.
    7. Wang, Yongjin & Wang, Yanling & Li, Kunwang, 2014. "Judicial quality, contract intensity and exports: Firm-level evidence," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 32-42.
    8. Visser, Robin, 2019. "The effect of the internet on the margins of trade," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 41-54.
    9. Shetewy, Nsreen & Shahin, Ahmed Ismail & Omri, Anis & Dai, Kuizao, 2022. "Impact of financial development and internet use on export growth: New evidence from machine learning models," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    10. Chiara Franco & Daniela Maggioni, 2022. "Does international trade favor proximity in cultural beliefs?," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 12(3), pages 449-477, September.
    11. Xiaomiao Yin & Lirong Xing & Chunxiao Cui, 2023. "The Impact of Multi-Dimensional Vectors on China’s Agricultural Products Export: Based on fsQCA," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-14, September.
    12. Jason Query & Jon C. Thompson, 2024. "Cultural Distance and International Trade," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 283-300, April.
    13. Hoonsawat Ratidanai, 2016. "Information Searching: The Case of Tourism Promoted Through the Internet," Global Economy Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 33-47, March.
    14. Hu, Xiaoqian & Sun, Boxue & Wang, Chao & Lim, Ming K. & Wang, Peng & Geng, Xinyi & Yao, Cuiyou & Chen, Wei-Qiang, 2023. "Impacts of China’s exports decline in rare earth primary materials from a trade network-based perspective," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    15. Liu, Ailan & Lu, Cuicui & Wang, Zhixuan, 2021. "Does cultural distance hinder exports?: A comparative study of China and the United States," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    16. Shuzhong Ma & Xueyao Guo & Hongsheng Zhang, 2021. "New driving force for China’s import growth: Assessing the role of cross‐border e‐commerce," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(12), pages 3674-3706, December.
    17. Bastos, Paulo & Silva, Joana, 2012. "Networks, firms, and trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 352-364.
    18. Dekuwmini Mornah & Raymond MacDermott, 2016. "Culture as a Determinant of Competitive Advantage in Trade," International Journal of Business and Economic Sciences Applied Research (IJBESAR), International Hellenic University (IHU), Kavala Campus, Greece (formerly Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Institute of Technology - EMaTTech), vol. 9(1), pages 69-76, April.
    19. Chen, Daniel L., 2023. "Do markets overcome repugnance? Muslim trade response to anti-Muhammad cartoons," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    20. Ratidanai Hoonsawat, 2016. "Information Searching: The Case of Tourism Promoted Through the Internet," Global Economy Journal (GEJ), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 16(1), pages 33-47, March.

    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:wsi:gejxxx:v:12:y:2012:i:04:n:1524-5861.1895. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Tai Tone Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscinet/gej .

    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.