Does the Poor’s Consumption of Calories Respond to Changes in Income? Evidence from Pakistan

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between income and calorie consumption for households in developing countries. Recent papers have questioned the strength of this relationship on the basis of several measurement problems that tend to overstate the responsiveness of calories consumption to income. The paper uses a household data set from Pakistan and estimates calories income elasticities for rural and urban households. The estimation takes into account the concerns raised by Behrman and Deolalikar (1987) and Bouis and Haddad (1992) about quality effects and unobservable variables. The paper finds that the elasticity is significantly different from zero. Furthermore, the relationship appears to be different according to households’ incomes. Poor households’ responsiveness of calories intake to changes in income is greater than that of the entire sample. These results are consistent with the conventional wisdom that existed before the recent criticisms.

Household income, women’s income share and food calorie intake in South Western Nigeria

“…Subramanian and Deaton (1996) estimated calorie-total expenditure elasticity of between 0.3 and 0.5 for households in rural Maharashtra in India. Grimard (1996) reported the calorie-expenditure elasticity for urban Pakistan to range between 0.51 and 0.25 from low to high-income households and 0.62 to 0.35 for the rural sector. 2 The non-classical measurement error bias can arise in two ways.…”

“…A wide range of empirical literature has provided evidence that the level of percapita calorie intake has a strong positive but non-linear relationship with household income, after controlling for household and demographic variables Subramanian and Deaton, 1996;Grimard, 1996). 1 Prior to 1987, calorie-income elasticity for low-income populations throughout the developing world was estimated to be between 0.4 and 0.8 .…”

Food security in the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority Zone of Ghana: an ordered probit with household hunger scale approach

“…3 An important dimension to food security studies worthy of mention is the analysis of calorie and nutrient demand functions. Notable contributions to this literature include Wolfe and Behrman [37], Pitt [38], Garrett and Ruel [39], Bhargava [40], Subramanian and Deaton [41], Grimard [42], Skoufias [43], Abdulai and Aubert [44], Aromolaran [45] and Ecker and Qaim [46]. The fundamental goal of these studies is to measure the impacts of critical factors notably income and price elasticities, on demand for calories and nutrients.…”

Nutrient elasticities among Nigerian households differentiated by income

“…A related pattern is Bennett's Law, which states that, as income rises, consumers reallocate their food budget away from starchy staples, such as rice and maize that are inexpensive sources of calories, towards higher-cost sources of calories such as fruits, vegetables, and animal products. Several studies (Bouis & Haddad, 1992;Subramanian & Deaton, 1996;Grimard, 1996 andAromolaran, 2004) have provided evidence that the level of per capita calorie intake has a strong relationship with household income, after controlling for household and demographic variables. Differences in food demand across income categories at a point in time can provide clues to the changes in demand that could result from sustained economic growth.…”