The Effect of Regional Food Safety Problems on National Agricultural Export Reputation: Empirical Evidence from The 2013 China’s Cadmium-Tainted Rice Incident

Xiaohe Zhou, Zhihao Wu and Jingqi Dang

Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, 2025, vol. 61, issue 11, 3277-3295

Abstract: Local product quality crises undermine collective trust via the international trade network. We employ a quasi-natural experiment of the 2013 China’s cadmium-tainted rice incident (CTRI) using a difference-in-differences (DID) specification to investigate the impact of food safety incidents on local agricultural trade and its spillover effects on the country’s exports. The results show that after the CTRI, the export volume and value of rice from contaminated provinces decreased by 92.3% and 94.2%, respectively, despite the cadmium levels in exported rice meeting international standards. Other provinces also experienced declines, resulting in an overall decrease in national rice export volume and value by 47.4% and 58.4%. It indicates that regional food safety incidents can damage the national reputation of the exporting country.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/1540496X.2025.2468858

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