FRENCH ROAST: CONSUMER RESPONSE TO INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT—EVIDENCE FROM SUPERMARKET SCANNER DATA

Do consumers boycott in response to international conflict? We show that during the 2003 U.S.-France dispute over the Iraq War, the market share of French-sounding, U.S. supermarket brands declined. The dispute was a negative shock to U.S. consumers' associations with France. Frenchsounding bra...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The review of economics and statistics 2016-03, Vol.98 (1), p.42-56
Main Authors: Pandya, Sonal S., Venkatesan, Rajkumar
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Behavioral economics
Behavioural economics
Boycotts
Consumer behavior
Consumer behaviour
Consumers
France
International disputes
Market shares
Studies
Supermarkets
United States
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Summary:Do consumers boycott in response to international conflict? We show that during the 2003 U.S.-France dispute over the Iraq War, the market share of French-sounding, U.S. supermarket brands declined. The dispute was a negative shock to U.S. consumers' associations with France. Frenchsounding brands, which consumers perceive to be French imports but are not, allow us to isolate the dispute's effect on economic behavior, as these brands' only link to France is through consumers' associations. Our estimates, derived from a nationwide sample of weekly supermarket sales for over 8,000 brands, are robust to a variety of alternate explanations. We also show that supermarkets with a higher proportion of customers who are U.S. citizens (i.e., who more strongly identify with the U.S. national identity) exhibited sharper boycotts.
ISSN:0034-6535
1530-9142
DOI:10.1162/REST_a_00526