| Abstract: |
Perceptions of Anglo-American dominance in movie and music trade motivate
restrictions on cultural trade. Yet, the market for another cultural good,
food at restaurants, is roughly ten times larger than the markets for music
and film. Using TripAdvisor data on restaurant cuisines, along with
Euromonitor data on overall and fast food expenditure, this paper calculates
implicit trade patterns in global cuisines for 52 destination countries. We
obtain three major results. First, the pattern of cuisine trade resembles the
“gravity” patterns in physically traded products. Second, after accounting
gravity factors, the most popular cuisines are Italian, Japanese, Chinese,
Indian, and American. Third, excluding fast food, the largest net exporters of
their cuisines are the Italians and the Japanese, while the largest net
importers are the US – with a 2017 deficit of over $130 billion – followed by
Brazil, China, and the UK. With fast food included, the US deficit shrinks to
$55 billion but remains the largest net importer along with China and, to a
lesser extent, the UK and Brazil. Cuisine trade patterns appear to run starkly
counter to the audiovisual patterns that have motivated concern about
Anglo-American cultural dominance. |