| heal.abstract |
Analysis of monthly data for January 1980 through December 1990 provides evidence that an American Soybean Association (ASA) promotional campaign focusing negative attention on the health issue of tropical oils induced structural change in US domestic consumption of edible palm and coconut oils. Evidence strongly suggests that the decline in tropical oil imports and consumption can be attributed to processor changes in inputs resulting from perceived consumer responses to the ASA health issues campaign. The study found prices of tropical oils to be insignificant in determining short-run soybean and cottonseed oil demand. Conversely, such domestic commodity promotion campaigns may have devastating s hort-term impacts on imports, which in turn are significant to the exports of a small number of producing countries. If the perceived negative attributes are less serious than implied, counter-promotion may diminish consumers' concerns over time or create new product markets, and declining tropical oil imports might be only temporarily affected. © 1993. |
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