Political backlash and consumer boycotts: Evidence from the NFB relocation and movie demand in Canada

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the impact of the announcement in 1952 of a change in Canadian cultural policy, namely the reorganization of the National Film Board (NFB) and the move of its headquarters from Ottawa to Montréal, on movie demand. Using weekly box office revenue data for a subsample of movie theatres in Toronto and Montréal from 1945 to 1955, we estimate the impact of this policy change with a triple difference estimator and find that the NFB headquarters move in Canada was followed by a decrease in movie attendance for movies produced in anglophone countries and an increase in movie attendance for French movies in Montréal. We complement our analysis with Odesi public poll Canadian data from 1949 to 1959 and find that poll respondents from Quebec held a more negative opinion about the decisions of the Canadian government and the tide of Americanization, relative to respondents elsewhere, and that their opinion deteriorated further after the relocation announcement and the relocation itself took place. This finding is consistent with our hypothesis that the relocation of NFB headquarters caused political backlash and triggered a boycott against anglophone, especially American, movies in Quebec.