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Shopping around? How households adjusted food spending over the Great Recession

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  • Griffith, Rachel
  • O'Connell, Martin
  • Smith, Kate

Abstract

Over the Great Recession real wages stagnated and unemployment increased. Concurrently, food prices rose sharply, outstripping growth in food expenditure, and leading to a reduction in calories purchased. This has led to concern about rising food poverty. We study British households to assess how they adjusted to changes in the economic environment. We show they switched to cheaper calories; implying food consumption was smoother than expenditure. We use longitudinal data to quantify the way households lowered their per calorie spending, and show they done this in part by increasing shopping effort, and without lowering the nutritional quality of their groceries.

Suggested Citation

  • Griffith, Rachel & O'Connell, Martin & Smith, Kate, 2014. "Shopping around? How households adjusted food spending over the Great Recession," CEPR Discussion Papers 10096, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10096
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Nutrition; Opportunity cost of time; Shopping behaviour;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

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