Public Policies and the Demand for Vegetables

Increased consumption of vegetables may reduce obesity and the prevalence of cardiac diseases and cancer. Norwegians consume less vegetables than nutrition experts recommend and the per capita consumption is lower than in most European countries. To investigate the causes of low consumption, a two-step approach is used to estimate the demand segmented by nine different household types. In the first step, a probit model is estimated to investigate the decision whether to purchase traditional vegetables, salad vegetables, and industrially processed vegetables. Conditional on purchase, an almost ideal demand model is used to model how much to purchase. The own-price elasticities and total expenditure elasticities are high for traditional and industrially processed vegetables for most household types. Especially households with children have elastic demand. Lower value added tax or lower import tariffs for traditional and industrially processed vegetables will increase the demand for these vegetables, while reducing the price of salad vegetables seem to have a limited effect. For households with children, increased incomes have large effects on the demand for traditional and industrially processed vegetables indicating that, for example, increased child support will result in increased vegetable consumption.