Tobacco companies shifted to developing countries when Western norms turned against smoking

Evidence

Growing awareness of the serious health effects of tobacco use stripped smoking of its glamour and turned much of the public against the tobacco industry. Nonsmoker rights against exposure to the toxic chemicals in secondhand smoke gained growing public support. A tobacco company official warned of the difficulties of containment strategies: “The antismoking movement is now so intertwined and interrelated that chopping off one arm, or the head, should not be viewed as a quick fix to containment” (Meier, 2000). In the face of this unfriendly normative change, the tobacco industry targeted developing countries with weak or nonexistent tobacco regulations as new growth markets. For a time, U.S. trade representatives threatened sanctions against countries that barred the importation of U.S. cigarettes. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1701

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Connects to the trade/law-merchant material on institutional adaptation — when reputational norms shift, industries relocate to jurisdictions with weaker institutions.