Do Social Movements Evoke Sympathetic Response? Evidence from Online Food Orders in Black-owned Restaurants after George Floyd's Death

We utilize the rise of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and the sentiment of racial sympathy to provide quantitative analyses on the interplay between the social movement and citizens’ sympathetic actions in supporting Black lives. Using detailed food order flow information from one of the largest online food delivery platforms in the U.S, we find that the total number and the total dollar amount of food orders in Black-owned restaurants increase by about 38% relative to those in non-Black-owned restaurants within the same delivery zone in the 140 days following George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer. Further analysis reveals that the platform company’s strategic allocation of traffic acts as an accelerator enhancing the sympathetic responses of individual citizens but it does not drive the entire surge in food orders. Our study provides large-scale, micro-level evidence that social movements and increased sympathy can foster collective actions to support marginalized groups.

Agarwal, Sumit and Lin, Yupeng and Zeng, Jean, Do Social Movements Evoke Sympathetic Response? Evidence from Online Food Orders in Black-owned Restaurants after George Floyd’s Murder (March 8, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4381808 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4381808