 Local global watchdogs: Trade, sourcing and the internationalization of social activismPamina Koenig, Sebastian Krautheim, Claudius Löhnert and Thierry Verdier Journal of International Economics, 2025, vol. 157, issue C Abstract: NGO campaigns criticizing firms for infringements along their internationalized value chains are a salient feature of economic globalization. We argue that understanding the international patterns of NGO campaigns requires accounting for the geography of their targets’ economic activities. We propose a model of global sourcing and international trade in which heterogeneous NGOs campaign against heterogeneous firms in response to infringements along their value chains. We find that campaigns are determined by a triadic gravity equation involving the country of the NGO, the country of the firm as well as the sourcing country. Importantly, independent of the location of the NGO, trade costs between the supplier and the firm shape the patterns of NGO campaigns. We use recently available data to estimate our triadic gravity equation at the NGO level and find strong support for this prediction as well as for other predictions specific to our modeling approach. Keywords: International trade; International sourcing; Gravity; NGOs; Campaigns; Social activism (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:157:y:2025:i:c:s0022199625000728 DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104116 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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