The Economics of Nationalism∗ Xiaohuan Lan Ben Li Cheung Kong GSB Boston College May 4, 2014 Abstract This paper provides an economic framework for examining how economic openness affects nationalism. Within a country, a region’s level of nationalism varies according to its economic interests in its domestic market relative to its foreign market. A region’s nationalism is strongest if the optimal size of its domestic market equals the size of its country. All else being equal, increasing a region’s foreign trade reduces its economic interests in its domestic market and thus weakens its nationalism. This prediction holds both cross-sectionally and over time, as evidenced by our empirical study using the Chinese Political Compass data and the World Value Surveys. Our framework also applies to analysis of nationalism across countries and receives support from cross-country data. Keywords: Nationalism, Economic Openness, Country Size, Gains from Trade, China. JEL Codes: F52, P16. ∗Contact author: Ben Li,
[email protected], 001-617-552-4517, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467. We thank the editor, two anonymous referees, as well as James Anderson, Roger Gordon, Harry Harding, Ann Harrison, Ruixue Jia, Wolfgang Keller, Wei Li, Liugang Sheng, Kevin O’Rourke, Torsten Persson, and David Strömberg for their insightful suggestions. We thank Sandra Poncet for sharing the data on distances between Chinese provinces and foreign countries. We also thank seminar participants at Boston College, Cheung Kong GSB, and various other places for helpful comments, David Mao for access to the CPoC data, and Xiaofeng Wang for technical supports.