Effect of consuming imported cultural goods on trading partners’ tolerance toward immigrants: The case of Japanese anime in Korea

there is political tension and conflict between countries. Because of this historical background, political conflict exists between Korea and Japan. This paper examines the effect of viewing Japanese anime (animation) on the attitudes of Koreans toward Japanese living in Korea. The major findings of the study show that the more frequently adult Koreans view Japanese anime, the more likely they are to accept Japanese as workplace colleagues and neighbors after controlling for endogeneity bias using instrumental variables. The findings of this paper imply that via the consumption of imported cultural goods, people are exposed to positive traits of the trading partner, and thus consumers have a stronger affinity with the export country. From this, we derive the policy implication that promoting trade of modern cultural goods is effective to increase mutual understanding between trade partners, reducing political tension between them.