Why it might be a good thing if the US exports culture

Advances in communication technologies over the past half century have made the cultural goods of one country more readily available to consumers in another, raising concerns that cultural products from large economies – in particular the US – will displace the indigenous cultural products of smaller economies.

…Contrary to growing fears about large- country dominance, trade shares are roughly proportional to country GDP shares; and relative to GDP, the US music share is substantially below the shares of other smaller countries. We find a substantial bias toward domestic music which has, perhaps surprisingly, increased sharply in the past decade.

…National policies aimed at preventing the death of local culture, such as radio airplay quotas, may explain part of the increasing consumption of local music.

That comes from a new paper from Fernando Ferreira and Joel Waldfogel.

Is the export of US culture something to be feared? Rock is the descendant of African rhythms, and the re-import of jazz and rock and hip hop in Africa has led to amazing local innovation. We’ve exported Hollywood to India and Nigeria and gotten Bollywood and Nollywood in return: a medium and media transformed.