Does China's trade defy cultural barriers?. Issue 3 (4th May 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Tadesse, Bedassa; White, Roger; Zhongwen, Huang
• Is Part Of: International review of applied economics. Volume 31:Issue 3(2017)
• Page Start: 398
• Page End: 428
• Publication Date: 2017-05-04
• Subjects: China -- cultural distance -- exports -- gravity model -- imports; F14 -- F22; Economics -- Periodicals; Web sites; Économie politique -- Périodiques; 330
• DOI: 10.1080/02692171.2016.1257583
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0269-2171

Abstract

Abstract: Using annual data for China and 88 trading partners that span the period 1995–2011, we estimate whether cross-societal cultural differences influence China's external trade flows. Our results, obtained from the estimation of a series of multi-level mixed effect random intercepts and coefficients models, indicate that China's aggregate exports and imports are largely unaffected by the cultural distance between China and its trading partners. Examination of disaggregate trade measures and consideration of the underlying dimensions of our composite cultural distance variable produces a largely similar result. Taken collectively, our results suggest that China's trade is less affected by cultural distance than has been reported for other countries in similar studies.