ABSTRACT
Nation-states often cite safeguarding cultural identity as their chief motive for regulating international trade in creative products. This chapter analyses this motivation in the context of theories of regulation and international trade. The efforts to enhance or preserve national cultural identity seem to run counter to the logic of the information age in which cultural meanings circulate at 'hyper-speeds' across national and other borders. 'National identity' continues to triumph through the current institutional logic of regulation, but the more interesting logic of the future may rest in the second line of 'cultural identity' in the n-gram figure. The regulation of creative products offers a unique instance of the elevation of moral and social reasons, often termed public interest in liberal theories of regulation, along parallel terms to the political economy of comparative advantage that has regulated international trade. International cultural regulation is sometimes analysed as the ability of the nation-states to regulate an international cultural division of labour.
