Replication Data for: "Preferences for Trading Partners: Evidence from Legislators and Citizens in Latin America"

Replication files for a book chapter with Cambridge University Press. Many public opinion surveys show that most citizens view international trade favourably. However, differences emerge when asked about support for trade with specific countries, as people are more supportive of trade with some countries than with others. In other words, people have preferences for specific trading partners. Whereas citizens mostly only have an indirect influence on countries’ trade policy, political elites, such as legislators, have a direct say in these policies. Just as citizens, they also may prefer some potential trading partners to others. With this in mind, this contribution asks two related questions: what explains attitudes towards trade with different countries? And do the factors that determine trading partner preferences differ between citizens and political elites? We address these questions for the case of Latin American countries. Data from the Design of Trade Agreements (DESTA) project (Dür et al. 2014) show that these countries have been particularly active in forging trade agreements. Importantly, countries in Latin America have reached out to Western partners, such as the United States (US) and the European Union (EU), but also to non-Western countries, in particular China. Which entity becomes the major trading partner has important implications, as China, the EU, and the US put forward substantially different models of trade liberalization.