Public events boost nationalist identity

Using unique data from Croatian supermarkets, we show that nationalist music events shape everyday consumption choices. First, we establish a link between buying goods labeled as ‘Croatian Quality’ or ‘Authentic Croatian’ and voting for nationalist parties. By tracking individuals through loyalty card purchases, we show that attending a nationalist concert leads to an estimated 2.7 percentage-point increase in the share of grocery spending on these nationally branded goods, a 13% increase over the mean. There is no similar impact of attending non-nationalist concerts and the results are not driven by supply or price shifts at concert locations.