Analysis of Ethnic Homophily in International Trade Using Large-Scale Surname Data

Although previous studies described the role of ethnic factors in international trade, due to the difficulty of estimating the ethnicity of trade entities, such analysis was limited to a few ethnic groups, and the differences in the strength of factors across ethnic groups were not identified. By estimating corporate ethnicity using the large-scale surname data of corporate managers, we quantitatively compare and analyze the dependence of various ethnic groups on ethnicity. Asian and Middle Eastern ethnic groups have strong ethnic homophily. An analysis of ethnic factors in commerce between same-language countries using the gravity model suggests that the effect of ethnicity is significant even when language barriers are removed.