文化距离的新测度指标及其对数字服务贸易的影响

A New Measurement Indicator of Cultural Distance and Its Effect on China’s Digital Services Trade

拓展现有测度指标的国家容量,以中国为基准分解国旗四个细分维度,并构建双边文化距离新测度指标——加权国旗距离。基于2005—2019年中国与169个国家出口面板数据和时变随机前沿引力模型,从非正式制度视角探讨软性约束之文化差异对新业态贸易的影响。实证发现,双边文化距离对中国数字服务出口具有显著且稳健的抑制作用,加权国旗距离每增加一个标准误,则中国对该国的数字服务出口额约降低10%,且随着服务业数字化转型进程的加快,加权国旗距离的负向影响更加显著。双边文化距离负向贸易效应具有鲜明的产业异质性和国别异质性。加快中国特色文化对外推广并建立数字联名设计平台,维护中国文化亲和形象并切实尊重当地文化特色,是跨境服务数字化转型下中国文化弥合的可选路径。

To expand the sample size of existing measurement indicator of bilateral cultural distance,this paper creates a new measurement indicator named weighted national flag distance(WNFD)by decomposing each national flag into four dimensions with China’s flag as the benchmark.From the perspective of informal institution and based on panel data from 2005 to 2019 within 169 countries,this paper discusses the effect of cultural differences in soft constraints on trade in new industries by drawing on time-varying stochastic frontier gravity model.Empirical study finds that bilateral cultural distance has a robust and significant negative effect on China’s digital services export.Averagely,with one standard error increase of WNFD,China’s export volume will drop by 10% and the negative effect of WNFD becomes more pronounced as the digital transformation process of the service sector accelerates.There are some heterogenous trade effects among countries and specific industries.For narrowing cultural distance in digital era,it is advisable to accelerate the promotion of Chinese characteristics’culture such as building a co-branding design digital platform,and to maintain affinity image of Chinese culture by actually respecting characteristics and taboos in other local cultures.