Identity, media and consumer behavior

This paper examines how the salience of national identity affects day-to-day economic behavior. We exploit the Brexit referendum as a shifter of the salience of national identity in the UK and measure its impact on consumer choices between British and EU grocery products. Drawing on a unique panel dataset with 12 million shoppers from a large UK retailer, we find that the Brexit referendum is associated with a 1.2 percentage point (a 5.9%) increase in consumption of products that are clearly identified as being British. This change in consumption is a spontaneous reaction to national identity being top of mind: consumption of these products increases during intense media discussions about Brexit, both in traditional and in social media. These findings underscore the importance of national identity in shaping routine economic decisions, and the critical role that the media can play in the persistence of these effects, by intermittently keeping identity top of mind.