The Economics of Nationalism

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. 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. (JEL F14, F52, O17, O19, P26, P33) It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars. — Arthur C. Clarke, 1951