Identity, preferences and consumption: Asian expatriates in the United States (India, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, China)

This dissertation relaxes the traditional assumption used in consumer theory, which takes preferences as fixed. I propose a model of immigrants' consumption behavior based on habit formation, incorporating past experiences, other consumers' consumption patterns, availability of products, and consumer's identity. The empirical studies analyze which factors affect Asian immigrants' food consumption choices after they come to the United States and experience western food and culture and compare the similarities and differences among groups from different Asian countries, including expatriates of China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, Thailand and Malaysia.; The dissertation consists of three independent but related articles. The first article presents a theoretical model based on habit formation and incorporating consumer's own past experiences of consumer goods, other consumer's past consumption patterns, availability of consumer goods, and consumer's identity, to derive a dynamic demand function.; The second paper, based on a nationwide internet-based survey of Asian students' food consumption behavior in the United States, investigates how food consumption in China may change as Western influences and product availability increase over time. Qualitative data on consumption of milk, beef, chicken, pork, bread, rice, pizza, hamburger, juice, and vegetables is collected. Factors that affect Chinese expatriates' consumption changes are determined for each product category. A marginal effect analysis reveals that factors affect different food products to different degrees. Fruit juice and milk appear to be the most promising short-term opportunities for food marketing in Chinese urban areas.; The third paper uses Chinese expatriates as the benchmark and compares them to expatriates from India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, Thailand, and Malaysia to. An Ordered Multinomial Logit Model and odds ratios are employed to measure and explain the group effects over time for ten food product categories in the survey. The consumption of fruit juice increased most, followed by milk, pizza, hamburgers, and bread. While consumption of vegetables, pork, and rice decreased. The respondents ranked taste and price as the three most important factors they consider when purchasing food. Respondents from all countries indicated that availability is the most factor affecting their food preferences and choices.