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Do U.S. consumers boycott products in response to international conflict? Two professors at the University of Virginia say that in the case of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the answer is "yes." Remember "freedom fries?" A brief refresher: As the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush was gearing up to wipe out what it called Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction," tensions were rising in the U.N. Security Council. France was deeply opposed to an attack and threatened to use its veto power to stop the action.
In the U.S., sentiment toward Paris plummeted, particularly among conservative Americans. Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly announced on the air he was boycotting French products and Capitol Hill cafeterias famously renamed French fries as "freedom fries," in an edible admonishment of the French government.
So talk of boycotts was in the air. But, as noted in a forthcoming paper in the journal Review of Economics and Statistics, measuring their economic impact has been a slippery affair.
"Most studies infer boycott behavior from indirect measures, such as bilateral trade patterns, abnormal stock market returns or consumer surveys, which are typically inconsistent with actual behavior," write associate professor of politics Sonal Pandya and business professor Rajkumar Venkatesan in their study, "French Roast: Consumer Response to International Conflict; Evidence from Supermarket Scanner Data."
It occurred to Pandya that supermarket scanners might offer some firm data on Americans' buying habits, so she and Venkatesan decided to dig deeper, studying weekly sales in 1,110 U.S. supermarkets in 50 regions across the country. For every week in 2003 they compared each store's sales of French-sounding brands to that same week in 2002. "Consumers' often use supermarket brands as an expression of their identity to others and also themselves," Venkatesan said.
[Paper]: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00526#.VUEShvBOKSp
[Source]: https://news.virginia.edu/content/study-tracks-us-boycott-french-sounding-products-during-2003-iraq-war
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2015, @08:10AM
Tax you can force, health insurance you cannot. Not without a constitutional amendment, which was written to permit taxes (the 16th amendment). Some stubborn people still do not have health insurance, and they are not even required to have it. They simply forfeit a tax deduction which they would receive by having health insurance.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday May 02 2015, @09:01AM
Tax you can force, health insurance you cannot.
Oh, yes we can. Bend over! We will cover your medical costs, because we are your people, and there is nothing you can do about it. The least you could do is say "thank you" you ungrateful wretch!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2015, @10:16AM
Cover the costs? WHAT costs? People go the emergency room and demand medical care and then leave without paying. It's the American way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 02 2015, @02:42PM
Its the "American way" because they have no choice except to do that (well, or die, but that's not really an option). America has become so set on fucking over the poor that even debtors prisons have been brought back, more than a century after being abolished.