 The effects of the Rana Plaza collapse on the sourcing choices of French importersPamina Koenig and Sandra Poncet () Journal of International Economics, 2022, vol. 137, issue C Abstract: This paper analyzes the effects of a major reputational shock affecting textile importers from Bangladesh. The collapse of the Rana Plaza building in April 2013 generated a surge of activism and media coverage specifically targeting the firms that sourced from the factories affected by the disaster. Using monthly firm-level import data from French Customs, we study any potential disruption in these firms’ imports from all origins, and specifically from Bangladesh. We use a difference-in-differences approach. French textile imports from Bangladesh rose continuously after the shock, and the overall imports of retailers sourcing from the Rana Plaza show no drop after the event. Our results do reveal a relative decline in Bangladeshi imports for those retailers named for sourcing from the collapsed factories. This effect is mirrored by a relative increase in these exposed firms’ imports from four particular countries, which are non-Asian and are geographically closer to France. Keywords: Reputation; Shocks; Multinational firms; Activism; Trade; Imports (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:inecon:v:137:y:2022:i:c:s0022199622000083 DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2022.103576 Access Statistics for this article Journal of International Economics is currently edited by Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier and RodrÃguez-Clare, Andrés More articles in Journal of International Economics from Elsevier |
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