Abstract: The United States recently mandated disclosure labels on all foods that contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs), despite longstanding, widespread use of voluntary third-party non-GMO labeling. We leverage the earlier passage and implementation of a mandatory GMO labeling law in Vermont as a quasi-natural experiment to show that adding this mandatory labeling into a market with pre-existing voluntary non-GMO labels had no effect on demand. Instead, the legislative process made consumers aware of GMO topics and increased non-GMO product sales before the GMO labeling mandate went into effect. The GMO-related legislative processes also increased non-GMO product demand in other states that considered, but did not implement, GMO labeling mandates. We find that 36% of new non-GMO product adoption can be explained by differences in consumer awareness tied to legislative activity. Our findings suggest that voluntary non-GMO labels may have provided an efficient disclosure mechanism without mandatory GMO labels.

Abstract: Brands increasingly face pressure from consumers to take a stance on political issues, but there is limited empirical evidence on the effect of political consumerism on sales. In this paper, we quantify the consequences of a brand taking a political stance. In July 2020, the chief executive officer of Goya, a large Latin food brand, praised then president Donald Trump, triggering a boycott and a counter “buycott” movement supporting the brand. Using consumer-level purchase data, we measure the net effect of the boycott/buycott movements on sales. Boycott-related social media posts and media coverage dominated buycott ones, but the sales impact was the opposite: Goya sales temporarily increased by 22%. However, this net sales boost fully dissipated within three weeks. We then explore heterogeneity in the sales response with the goal of understanding which households are most likely to engage in political consumerism and what factors serve as frictions to participation. We document large sales increases (56.4%) in heavily Republican counties but do not find a strong countervailing boycott effect in heavily Democratic counties or among Goya’s core customer base—Latino consumers. Finally, we show that brand loyalty and switching costs are potential explanations for the limited evidence of boycotting among experienced Goya customers.

Lelkes (2022) and Bronnenberg and Dubé (2022) provide thoughtful comments on Liaukonytė et al. (2022) and give additional context for how our work relates to the broader literature on political consumerism, polarization, and corporate political engagement. The comments also highlight important areas for future research especially as they relate to the generalizability of our findings, identification challenges, and consumer motivation to engage in political consumerism. In this rejoinder, we expand on each of these three points. In revisiting the generalizability angle, we also document the aftermath of another high-profile social media boycott campaign: widely publicized calls to boycott Spotify did not harm Spotify’s subscriber numbers or revenue, which grew at a similar rate as before the controversy. We discuss this and other similarities between the Spotify and Goya boycotts.

This paper studies category captaincy, a vertical relationship where retailers delegate  shelf placement and pricing decisions of an entire product category to one of the leading manufacturers within that category. These  contracts involve preferential treatment given to certain brands within the retailer. However, they are confidential and empirical analysis has been limited. To study the prevalence and welfare impact of these contracts, I develop a novel approach to infer the presence of captaincy contracts based on preferential treatment  in shelf placement and pricing. I first classify retailers into different captaincy types based on a brand * retailer specific quality of shelf placement inferred from a demand model. I then conduct pricing tests and find that captains, in line with theoretical predictions and industry anecdotes, eliminate double markups from their own products but not from competitor products.  Comparative statics show that captaincy relationships increase the market share of the captain, but they can also increase consumer welfare by about 5% due to the elimination of double markups on the captain's products. 

This paper studies the impact of Generative AI technologies on the demand for online freelancers using a large dataset from a leading global freelancing platform. We identify the types of jobs that are more affected by Generative AI and quantify the magnitude of the heterogeneous impact. Our findings indicate a 21% decrease in the number of job posts for automation-prone jobs related to writing and coding, compared to jobs requiring manual-intensive skills, within eight months after the introduction of ChatGPT. We show that the reduction in the number of job posts increases competition among freelancers while the remaining automation-prone jobs are of greater complexity and offer higher pay. We also find that the introduction of Image-generating AI technologies led to a 17% decrease in the number of job posts related to image creation. We use Google Trends to show that the more pronounced decline in the demand for freelancers within automation-prone jobs correlates with their higher public awareness of ChatGPT's substitutability.