| 초록 |
In spite of the rapid development of trade liberalization under the WTO, world trade is
increasing at a slower rate than economic theory predicts. In response, economists have been
analyzing the effects of non-economic variables on trade, and one of them is cultural distance
between nations. Early researches on this topic have largely depended on trade data derived from
total commodities with a high percentage of industrial products, and seem to have concluded that
cultural distance serves as an obstacle between trading nations. This paper begins with the
question of whether or not the above conclusion is applicable to the food trade. This is because
the products of the food trade, contrary to industrial products, have an innate cultural connection
to their country of origin, thus raising the possibility that cultural distance could in fact increase
trade if consumers prefer products of a heterogeneous nature. Therefore, this paper focuses on
the effect of cultural distance on the international food trade as compared to other industrial
sectors. The cultural distance used in this research is obtained from the confirmatory factory
analysis based on the six Hofstede’s cultural indices. In order to explore to this issue, a gravity
model is estimated for four industrial sectors over the period from 2000 to 2018 using panel data
analysis. The study finds that the cultural distance has positively affected international food trade
in particular. In large scale industrial sectors considered in this paper, international trades has
been negatively or insignificantly related to the cultural distance.
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