Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T00:30:42.915Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

French Wine Exports to China: Evidence from Intra-French Regional Diversification and Competition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 February 2020

Olivier Bargain*
Affiliation:
University of Bordeaux, LAREFI, Av. Leon Duguit, 33600Pessac, France; e-mail: [email protected].

Abstract

While France leads the way in the Chinese import market of wine, China is France's third largest wine export market by value. In this article, I analyze the determinants of France's wine exports to China, differentiated by French wine growing regions. I estimate a simple demand using a dataset on wine shipments of 100 different types of French bottled wines to China between 1998 and 2015. I find a wide range of income and price effects across French regions—a range not unlike those found by studies spanning multiple countries. Bordeaux wines exhibit the largest Chinese income elasticity. However, other French regions appear to catch up. Price elasticity, meanwhile, is particularly low for highly reputable wines, but quite high for wines targeting middle-class customers and wines from regions traditionally known for white wines. (JEL Classifications: F10, F14, L66, Q17)

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © American Association of Wine Economists 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The author is grateful to Mihai Mutascu and Camélia Turcu for insightful comments and suggestions, as well as the editor of the special issue, Jean-Marie Cardebat, the anonymous reviewer, and of the editor in chief, Karl Storchmann, for useful comments and suggestions.

References

Anderson, K. (2015). Growth and Cycles in Australia's Wine Industry: A Statistical Compendium (1843–2013). Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, J. E., and Van Wincoop, E. (2003). Gravity with gravitas: A solution to the border puzzle. American Economic Review, 93(1), 170192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, J. E., and Van Wincoop, E. (2004). Trade costs. Journal of Economic Literature, 42(3), 691751.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, K., and Wittwer, G. (2001). U.S. dollar appreciation and the spread of Pierce's disease: Effects on the world's wine markets. Australian and New Zealand Wine Industry Journal, 16(2), 7075.Google Scholar
Anderson, K., and Wittwer, G. (2013). Modeling global wine markets to 2018: Exchange rates, taste changes, and China's import growth. Journal of Wine Economics, 8(2), 131158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bargain, O., Cardebat, J. M., Chiappini, R., and Laffitte, C. (2018). Long-term prospects of the international wine trade. Journal of Wine Economics, 13(4), 442450.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bouët, A., Emlinger, C., and Lamani, V. (2017). What determines exports of luxury products? The case of cognac. Journal of Wine Economics, 12(1), 3758.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Candau, F., Deisting, F., and Schlick, J. (2017). How income and crowding effects influence the world market for French wines. World Economy, 40(5), 963977.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Capitello, R., Agnoli, L., and Begalli, D. (2015). Chinese import demand for wine: Evidence from econometric estimations. Journal of Wine Research, 26(2), 115135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Capitello, R., Charters, S., Menival, D., and Yuan, J. X. (2017). The Wine Value Chain in China: Consumers, Marketing, and the Wider World. Oxford: Chandos Publishing.Google Scholar
Cardebat, J. M., and Figuet, J. M. (2019). The impact of exchange rates on French wine exports. Journal of Wine Economics, 14(1), 7178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Castillo, J. S., Villanueva, E. C., and García-Cortijo, M. C. (2016). International wine trade and its new export dynamics (1988–2012): A gravity model approach. Agribusiness: An International Journal, 32(4), 466481.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, N., and Juvenal, L. (2016). Quality, trade, and exchange rate pass-through. Journal of International Economics, 100(C), 6180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crozet, M., Head, K., and Mayer, T. (2012). Quality sorting and trade: Firm-level evidence for French wine. Review of Economic Studies, 79(2), 609644.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dal Bianco, A., Boatto, V. L., Caracciolo, F., and Santeramo, F. G. (2015). Tariffs and nontariff frictions in the world wine trade. European Review of Agricultural Economics, 43(1), 3157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleming, E., Mueller, R., and Thiemann, F. (2009). The “digital grapevine” and the global flow of wine: A gravity model of ICT in wine trade. Mimeo.Google Scholar
Fogarty, J. (2010). The demand for beer, wine and spirits: A survey of the literature. Journal of Economic Surveys, 24(3), 428478.Google Scholar
Gorman, W. M. (1959). Separable utility and aggregation. Econometrica, 27(3), 469481.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Head, K., and Mayer, T. (2014). Gravity equations: Workhorse, toolkit and cookbook. In Gopinath, G., Helpman, E., and Rogoff, K. (eds.), Handbook of International Economics, Volume 4, 131195. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Institute, Wine (2017). World statistics. Available from www.wineinstitute.org.Google Scholar
Johnson, R. C. (2012). Trade and prices with heterogeneous firms. Journal of International Economics, 86(1), 4356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kashiha, M., Depken, C. A., and Thill, J.-C. (2016). Border effects in a free trade zone: Evidence from European wine shipments. Journal of Economic Geography, 17(2), 411433.Google Scholar
Labys, W. C. (1976). An international comparison of price and income elasticities for wine consumption. Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 20(1), 3336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, J. G., Jia, J. R., Taylor, D., Bruwer, J., and Li, E. (2011). The wine drinking behaviour of young adults: An exploratory study in China. British Food Journal, 113(10), 13051317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, H., and McCarthy, B. (2016). Wine purchasing behaviour in China. In Capitello, R., Charters, S., Menival, D., and Yuan, J. (eds.), The Wine Value Chain in China: Global Dynamics, Marketing and Communication in the Contemporary Chinese Wine Market, 117130. Cambridge, MA: Chandos Publishing.Google Scholar
Maurel, C. (2009). Determinants of export performance in French wine SMEs. International Journal of Wine Business Research, 21(2), 118142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melitz, M. J. (2003). The impact of trade on intra-industry reallocations and aggregate industry productivity. Econometrica, 71(6), 16951725.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muhammad, A., Leister, A. M., McPhail, L., and Chen, W. (2014). The evolution of foreign wine demand in China. Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 58(3), 392408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
National Bureau of Statistics of China (2016). Available from http://www.stats.gov.cn (in Chinese).Google Scholar
OIV (2016). Statistical report on world vitiviniculture. Paris, France: International Organisation of Vine and Wine. Available from http://www.oiv.int/public/medias/5029/world-vitiviniculture-situation-2016.pdf.Google Scholar
Robinson, P. A. (2009). Exchange rate pass-through to U.S. import prices: Evidence from the wine market. Whitman College Working Paper No. 23. Available from https://www.whitman.edu/economics/Workingpapers/content/WP_23.pdf.Google Scholar
Santos Silva, J. M. C., and Tenreyro, S. (2006). The log of gravity. Review of Economics and Statistics, 88(4), 641658.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seidemann, V., Atwal, G., and Heine, K. (2016). Gift culture in China: Consequences for the fine wine sector. In Capitello, R., Charters, S., Menival, D. and Yuan, J. (eds.), The Wine Value Chain in China: Global Dynamics, Marketing and Communication in the Contemporary Chinese Wine Market, 4761. Cambridge, MA: Chandos PublishingGoogle Scholar
Silverman, M., Sengupta, S., and Castaldi, R. M. (2004). Improving export performance: The case of the US wine industry. Journal of Global Marketing, 17(1), 4565.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Song, H., and Liu, A. (2017). Modeling and forecasting the demand for imported wines in China. Mimeo.Google Scholar
Xu, P., Zeng, Y. C., Song, S., and Lone, T. (2014). Willingness to pay for red wines in China. Journal of Wine Research, 25(4), 265280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar