Trade policy preference, childhood sporting experience, and informal school curriculum: An examination of views of the TPP from the viewpoint of behavioral economics

Abstract

We investigated how childhood education and experiences helped to form noncognitive skills and later, trade policy preferences. We used individual‐level data with approximately 10,000 observations collected in July 2016. Using the instrumental variables (IV) method, with sporting experience and informal education in the childhood as exogenous IV, we found that (1) sporting experiences and informal education lead people to have positive subjective views about the role of group work, competition, reciprocity, and generalized trust and (2) positive views about the role of group work, competition, reciprocity, and trust leads people to prefer the Trans‐Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP).