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More or Better ? Measuring Quality versus Quantity in Food Consumption

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  • Corinna Manig
  • Alessio Moneta

Abstract

As people become richer they get the opportunity of consuming more but also qualitatively better goods. This holds for a basic commodity like food as well. We investigate food consumption in Russia, taking into account both expenditure and nutrition value in terms of calories. We analyze how food consumption patterns change with increasing income by estimating both "quantity Engel curves" and "quality Engel curves". The former describe the functional dependence of calories consumed on total expenditure. The latter trace out the dependence of price per calorie as a proxy for quality on total expenditure. We compare income elasticities of quantity with income elasticities of quality. In these Russian data for years 2000-2002 the reaction of quality to changes in income is significantly stronger than the reaction of quantity to income changes suggesting that Russian households tend to choose higher quality food items as income rises.

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Paper provided by Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy in its series LEM Papers Series with number 2009/17.

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Date of creation: 12 Nov 2009
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Handle: RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2009/17

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Keywords: Food consumption patterns; calorie intake; income elasticity decomposition; Engel curves; method of average derivatives;

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  1. Behrman, Jere R & Deolalikar, Anil B, 1987. "Will Developing Country Nutrition Improve with Income? A Case Study for Rural South India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(3), pages 492-507, June.
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Cited by:
  1. Melanie Lefevre, 2011. "Willingness-to-pay for Local Milk-based Dairy Product in Senegal," CREPP Working Papers 1108, Centre de Recherche en Economie Publique et de la Population (CREPP) (Research Center on Public and Population Economics) HEC-Management School, University of Liège.
  2. Staudigel, Matthias, 2010. "The Demand For Food Quality In Russia And Its Linkage To Obesity," 115th Joint EAAE/AAEA Seminar, September 15-17, 2010, Freising-Weihenstephan, Germany 116444, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
  3. Staudigel, Matthias, 2011. "How do obese people afford to be obese? Consumption strategies of Russian households," 2011 International Congress, August 30-September 2, 2011, Zurich, Switzerland 116065, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
  4. Ogundari, Kolawole, 2012. "Demand For Quantity Versus Quality In Beef, Chicken And Fish Consumption In Nigeria," Revista de Economia e Agronegocio / Brazilian Review of Economics and Agribusiness, Federal University of Vicosa, Department of Agricultural Economics, vol. 10(1).
  5. Ulrich Witt, 2011. "Sustainability and the Problem of Consumption," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2011-16, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Evolutionary Economics Group.
  6. Andreas Chai & Alessio Moneta, 2012. "Back to Engel? Some evidence for the hierarchy of needs," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 649-676, September.

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