Annie Tubadji (p), Don Webber

Archana Kumari

Trade routes are the reason why half the countries in the world call their herbal brew ‘tea’ and the other half ‘chai’ (Saberi, 2010; World Atlas of Language Structures, 2019). Yet, it is not clear whether the spread of the word tea indicates the fashion that drove the consumption and consequently the trade with tea, or whether the intensity of the trade is simply reflected in the intensity of use of the word ‘tea’. The question of causality between language frequency and volumes of bilateral trade is explored in this paper from the point of view of narrative economics and Culture-Based Development, exploring the role of the cultural discourse in the economic process. Using linguistic data from Google n-grams (a digitalized 5 percent sample of world libraries) spreading over the period 1821 – 2008 and data on bilateral trade with China from the Centre d’Etudes Prospectives et d’Informations Internationales (CEPII, Paris) for the same period, we apply reverse causality test on whether the ranking of the word tea in a local language is influenced by flows of trade with China. Next, we use factor analysis for all Chinese foreign words in a particular language and we infer the frequency of this factor variable to explain the relevant trade flows. Results from a pooled cross section with time and country fixed effects and panel data analysis are strongly consistent. Our findings suggest that the use of the word ‘tea’ is universally impacted not by the direct flows of trade with China, but by the overall size of the Chinese economy, independent of the size of the counterpart economy trading with China. Also, while the flows do not affect the change in the frequency of the use of the word ‘tea’, the use of the word ‘tea’ does predict both trade inflows and outflows with China. Moreover, the lagged value of the frequency of use of the word ‘tea’ predicts the trade flows too. In short, the creation of cultural discourse is endogenous to economic power, yet, the cultural discourse itself amplifies the trade flows with the bigger economy. We interpreted these finding as narrative economics evidence for the endogeneity of the cultural discourse and its impact on bilateral economic trade.

Artjoms Ivlevs (p)

Don Webber

This paper aims to assess the political attitudes, actions and preferences of the middle class people in China, as well as in other countries characterised by authoritarian political regimes/tendencies (Russia, Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Vietnam, Azerbaijan) and post-socialist countries that have recently established democratic regimes (Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Estonia), with a broader objective of identifying the role that the middle class might play in contributing to and sustaining democratic and institutional change. Conceptually, the study draws on the modernisation and critical junctures theories of economic growth and political development. The empirical analysis is based on the two rounds (2005-09 and 2010-14) of the Worlds Values Survey. Very preliminary results suggest that, in China, people in the upper half of the income distribution or those identifying themselves as middle class are not more likely to support democracy or be engaged in political activities that poorer people. This casts doubt on whether the middle class in China will be driving political and institutional change. Comparisons with other countries are currently underway.

Ana Tubadji , Don Webber (p)

Artjoms Ivlevs

This paper examines how social constructs shape the influence of gender and motherhood on the gender pay gap around the world. We analyse the universality of the social construct about women as child bearers rather than being equal to male co-workers in the labour market. We also adopt a Weberian cultural relativity perspective across space, and particularly between the EU and Chinese regions. Estimations of a Mincer-Lemieux specification of the Mincer wage equation using data drawn from the World Values Survey confirms the role of the social construct about females as being child bearers, which has a strong geographical omnipresent effect and is nuanced by local culture. ‘Supporting half the sky’ is a role for the female worker that remains associated with fewer opportunities for females to benefit from their education and skills, irrespective of the Chinese or Western type economic system. What drives the negative effect of children on the gender pay gap is the imposition of societal expectations and educationally engrained self-perceptions about the role of the woman as child bearer.

Archana Kumari (p)

Annie Tubadji

Title: Chinese provincial convergence, disparity, and mobility: An intra-distributional comparative study

The study examines the regional dynamics of convergence, divergence, mobility, persistence, and polarisation for 31 Chinese provinces from 1993 to 2016. The growth paths widely diverge for 21 poor inland provinces and 10 rich coastal provinces. With regard to convergence, the study finds that convergence started to predominate from 2005 to 2014 and there is a larger influence of within coastal-coastal provincial equality to the overall national convergence. Our findings suggest importance of group-culture for economic growth since we find a positive relationship between a province converging without switching, indifferent if its ‘club’ is the winners or losers in relative economic growth.