US consumer reactions to China's Shuanghui acquisition of Smithfield Foods and its neural basis Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. The $4.7 billion acquisition of Smithfield Foods by China's Shuanghui International (now WH Group) marks the largest Chinese takeover of a US company in history. Using electroencephalography along with an incentive compatible willingness-to-pay (WTP) elicitation mechanism, our study provides neural based evidence that the ShuanghuiSmithfield acquisition lowered consumers' preference for the Smithfield brand, but increased it for the Chinese brand. Consumers' neural preference for American brands increased after learning about the acquisition, implying a positive spillover effect to US brands in the US market. We also find that, after learning that an item is a product of the United States, consumers' neural preference decreased although their willingness-to-pay increased, consistent with some empirical reports that many US consumers prefer to purchase cheaper products made abroad rather than products of the United States with higher prices.

published proceedings

  • AGRIBUSINESS

author list (cited authors)

  • Zhang, Y. Y., Palma, M. A., Jin, S., & Yuan, X.

citation count

  • 5

complete list of authors

  • Zhang, Yu Yvette||Palma, Marco A||Jin, Shaosheng||Yuan, Xiaotong

publication date

  • December 2019

publisher