Effect of consuming imported cultural goods on tolerance for immigrants from trade partners: Case of Japanese anime in Korea

Amount of consuming imported goods is thought to influence consumer’s view and attitude toward the country which export the goods. This paper examines effect of viewing Japanese animation on attitude towards Japan in Korea. Major findings are that the more frequently adult Korean view Japanese animation, the more they are likely to accept Japanese as colleagues at work after controlling for endogeneity bias by using instrumental variables. This implies that, through consuming imported cultural goods, people learned the labor quality of the trade partner, which reduces the information asymmetry about the labor quality of the exported country. Consequently, people come to accept the labor force from the trade partner in the labor market. Labor market becomes more open to migrant from the exported countries. The modern cultural goods such as Japanese animation representing “Cool Japan” have the externality in the labor market of its imported country.