Trade policy preference, childhood sporting experience, and informal school curriculum: An examination of views of the TPP from the viewpoint of behavioral economics

• Author: Yoshiro Tsutsui,Eiji Yamamura
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/roie.12356
• Date: 01 February 2019
• Published date: 01 February 2019

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Trade policy preference, childhood sporting

experience, and informal school curriculum: An

examination of views of the TPP from the viewpoint

of behavioral economics

Eiji Yamamura

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Yoshiro Tsutsui

2

1

Seinan Gakuin University, Japan

2

Konan University, Japan

Correspondence

Eiji Yamamura, Department of

Economics, Seinan Gakuin University,

6-2-92 Nishijin, Sawara-ku Fukuoka

814-8511, Japan.

Email: yamaei@seinan-gu.ac.jp

Funding information

This study was supported by the

Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research B

(Grant No. 16H03628) from the Japan

Society for the Promotion of Science

Abstract

We investigated how childhood education and experiences

helped to form noncognitive skills and later, trade policy

preferences. We used individual-level data with approxi-

mately 10,000 observations collected in July 2016. Using the

instrumental variables (IV) method, with sporting experience

and informal education in the childhood as exogenous IV,

we found that (1) sporting experiences and informal educa-

tion lead people to have positive subjective views about the

role of group work, competition, reciprocity, and generalized

trust and (2) positive views about the role of group work,

competition, reciprocity, and trust leads people to prefer the

Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement

(TPP).

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INTRODUCTION

A 2016 referendum in the United Kingdom resulted in a striking change in its role in Europe—its with-

drawal from the European Union (Brexit). In that same year, Donald Trump was elected President of

the United States; he soon declared that the United States would withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Stra-

tegic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP) and the Paris Agreement. In a number of European

countries, nationalistic political parties grew more popular and increased their influence on economic

policy. Thus, unilateralism appears to have become a pervasive practice, even among developed coun-

tries that would normally promote globalization by seeking market integration among countries. The

following question naturally arises: how can unilateralism be avoided, enabling countries to maintain

interdependence and economic trade benefits.

It has been observed that educated people tend to prefer international trade and immigration

(Mayda, 2006; Mayda & Rodrik, 2005).

1

Further, international economics specialists who hope to

build public support for globalization want people to understand the mutual benefits provided by inter-

national trade.

2

This finding supports the argument that a lack of basic economic knowledge leads to

Received: 13 October 2017

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Revised: 5 May 2018

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Accepted: 8 May 2018

DOI: 10.1111/roie.12356

The copyright line for this article was changed on 30 October after original online publication.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction

in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2018 The Authors. Review of International Economics Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Rev Int Econ. 2019;27:61–90. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/roie

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unexpected outcomes and that people should therefore study economics (Caplan, 2007). However, it is

not clear that people will necessarily support globalization and international cooperation, even if they

understand that large benefits can be gained by participating in bodies such as the European Union and

TPP. The critical point is whether globalization widens the income gap among people. For instance,

international trade has increased unemployment within a country (Acemoglu, Autor, Dorn, Hanson, &

Price, 2016; Autor, Dorn, & Hanson, 2013, 2016). As suggested by Helpman, Itskhoki, and Redding

(2010a), increase of wage inequality comes first after liberalizing the international trade even though

the inequality decreases eventually. Then, some people are afraid that they might benefit much less

than others and become losers as an outcome of the trade.

People’s views about globalization appear to depend, not only on logical thinking, but also on

emotions and perceptions. As Mayda and Rodrik (2005) have observed, even after controlling for cog-

nitive skills developed during years of schooling, noneconomic factors, such as values and attach-

ments, play an important role in determining people’s trade preferences. In other words, people’s

noncognitive skills, including their values and perceptions, are potential key factors in avoiding unilat-

eralism. The issue of how noncognitive skills are formed has become a hot topic in the field of behav-

ioral and education economics (e.g., Algan, Cahuc, & Shleifer, 2013; Heckman, Moon, Pinto,

Savelyev, & Yavitz, 2010a,b; Hryshko, Luengo-Prado, & Sørensen, 2011; Kawaguchi & Miyazaki,

2009; Fehr, Bernhard, & Rockenbach, 2008). No studies have analyzed the extent to which the process

of preference formation in childhood influences trade preferences in adulthood, although a number of

studies have analyzed the determinants of international trade preferences (e.g., Blonigen & McGrew,

2014; Tomiura, Ito, Mukunoki, & Wakasugi, 2016).

The purpose of this paper is therefore to examine the way in which childhood experiences form

noncognitive skills, which in turn influence trade policy preferences, by considering the degree of sup-

port for TPP. We have examined several types of childhood experiences, using proxies for experiences

that bridge and bond social capital in childhood (during the primary school years). In this study, sport-

ing experiences are used as a proxy for bridging social capital, while community participation is used

as a proxy for bonding social capital. The informal “hidden curricula”in schools are also considered.

In June 2016, immediately after the Japan House of Councilors election, researchers collected individ-

ual data from all over Japan—the sample includes approximately 10,000 observations. These data

make it possible to examine the ways in which childhood experiences influence trade preferences and,

by extension, views on the TPP. Collecting data in 2016 ensured that the national context featured con-

flicts between unilateralism and globalism.

This study has used types of experience and education in childhood as exogenous instrumental var-

iables (IV) to control for the endogeneity of key independent variables. This approach captures non-

cognitive skills while examining the formation of trade preferences. The key findings of this study are

that sporting experiences and informal education developed noncognitive skills, which in turn had a

crucial influence on participants’views of the TPP. This paper makes an important contribution to the

study of trade preference formation by bridging educational and international economics from the

viewpoint of behavioral economics. It is the first study to link the role of childhood experiences with

later international trade preferences. In particular, group work and similar aspects of the informal “hid-

den curriculum”of schools enable people to recognize the benefits of international trade by developing

an appreciation for cooperation and competition.

The remainder of this article is organized as follows. Section 2 provides a survey of the relevant lit-

erature and Section 3 proposes testable hypotheses. Section 4 explains the process of data collection

and presents the basic statistics. Section 5 describes the empirical method and identification strategy

used. Section 6 presents and interprets the estimated results. The final section offers some reflections

and conclusions .

YAMAMURA & TSUTSUI

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