Crises de segurança do alimento e a demanda por carnes no Brasil

We investigate whether the food security crisis affect the demand for beef, pork and chicken in Brazil. We construct food safety indices for each meat on the basis of the total number of pages of the 'Folha de São Paulo' newspaper that fit predefined search criteria. We use the three food safety indices, the retail prices of each meat, the price of a composite good and per capita expenditure on consumption as explanatory variables in six alternative specifications of a system of four demand equations, and select the best specification of the system using likelihood ratio tests. The preferred model indicates that food safety crises do not affect the demand for meat in Brazil, and its estimates of Hicksianas and Marshallian own-price, crossprice elasticities confirm beef, pork and chicken are substitutes. Finally, its expenditure elasticities show that all goods are normal, except for pork that is an inferior good; that demand for meat is likely to lose importance to the composite good (Engel's law); the demand for chicken meat is likely to lose importance to the beef; and the demand for pork is likely to lose importance for other meats.