Quantifying the Effect of Economic Sanctions on Trade in Cultural Goods

The question of whether the imposition of economic sanctions impairs or nurtures cultural affinity remains controversial. In effect, this paper investigates the effect of economic sanctions on the trade of cultural goods as a proxy for cultural proximity, using cross-country data with 5,304 country pairs ranging from the years 1996–2019. Through extensive robustness checks, our main findings reveal that economic sanctions drive up the trade of cultural goods. The effect on the trade of cultural goods is heterogeneous across various forms of economic sanctions. While military, arms, trade, and travel sanctions are trade facilitators, financial and other sanctions are trade barriers. These effects are conditional on the level of economic development in the sanctioned countries and change over time. Our findings suggest cultural implications of economic sanctions in foreign policy design.