Discussion paper
DP13614 The Importance of Consumer Taste in Trade
This paper documents the importance of consumer taste in the food industry using Belgian firm-product customs data by destination. We identify consumer taste through the use of a control function approach and estimate it jointly with other demand parameters using a very
flexible demand specification. The results show that taste decreases in distance but this relationship is not monotonic. The contribution of consumer taste to actual export revenue ranges from 1% to 31% depending on the product category in the food industry. On average, consumer taste explains about as much of the variation in exports as marginal costs.
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