Title: Cultural imports, foreign influences, and domestic traditions | VOX, CEPR Policy Portal
Headings: 
The importance of culture
What’s in a name?
Foreign media’s influence on names
References

Content: The empirical question raised by these survey responses is whether the foreign media that consumers enjoy have the adverse impact of spreading American customs and undermining indigenous culture. If so, then there is a kind of “tragedy of the commons,” whereby individual consumer decisions deplete a collectively valued resource. According to this way of thinking, protectionism in audiovisual services protects consumers from the externalities they impose on each other. Alternatively, it might be the case that foreign audiovisual services can be “safely” consumed without negative side effects on domestic traditions. The American ideas and customs that cause concern may be political or economic rather than cultural. What’s in a name? Investigations of the empirical influence of audiovisual imports on domestic culture must confront the problem of measurement. Some aspects of culture like language and religion are measured in surveys, but they change very slowly. Other aspects of culture like diet and clothing are difficult to quantify and compile. Even if they could be measured precisely, it would be very hard to identify the impact of foreign audiovisual services on the evolution of these traits.