IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea99/21552.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Economies Of Scale, Household Size, And The Demand For Food: The Missing Link

Author

Listed:
  • Benin, Samuel

Abstract

For the same level of per capita resources, larger households are deemed better off due to possible scale economies from consuming household public goods. Contradictory evidence that per capita demand for food declines with household size has puzzled economists. This paper suggests that larger households have costs associated with sharing food, especially high-value foods, and so they substitute towards cheaper and basic foods, whose per capita demand increases with household size. However, since high-value foods form a larger proportion of the budget on all foods, per capita demand for all foods declines with household size when Engel food-share equation is estimated using aggregate food expenditure data.

Suggested Citation

  • Benin, Samuel, 1999. "Economies Of Scale, Household Size, And The Demand For Food: The Missing Link," 1999 Annual meeting, August 8-11, Nashville, TN 21552, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea99:21552
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.21552
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/21552/files/sp99be03.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.21552?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Angus Deaton & Christina Paxson, 1998. "Economies of Scale, Household Size, and the Demand for Food," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 897-930, October.
    2. Hassan, Rashid M. & Babu, Suresh Chandra, 1991. "Measurement and determinants of rural poverty : Household consumption patterns and food poverty in rural Sudan," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 451-460, December.
    3. Haaga, John G. & Mason, John B., 1987. "Food distribution within the family : Evidence and implications for research and programmes," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 146-160, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jayasinghe, Maneka & Chai, Andreas & Ratnasiri, Shyama & Smith, Christine, 2017. "The power of the vegetable patch: How home-grown food helps large rural households achieve economies of scale & escape poverty," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 62-74.
    2. Ichimura, Hidehiko & Todd, Petra E., 2007. "Implementing Nonparametric and Semiparametric Estimators," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 74, Elsevier.
    3. Raghbendra Jha & Bagala Biswal & Urvashi D. Biswal, 2001. "An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Public Expenditures on Education and Health on Poverty in Indian States," ASARC Working Papers 2001-05, The Australian National University, Australia South Asia Research Centre.
    4. Murray Leibbrandt & James Levinsohn & Justin McCrary, 2005. "Incomes in South Africa since the fall of Apartheid," Working Papers 536, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan.
    5. Julia Jadin & Florine Le Henaff, 2024. "The Differential impact of Covid-19 on Household Carbon Footprint: A Gender Perspective," Working Papers ECARES 2024-09, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    6. Francis Teal, 2006. "Consumption and welfare in Ghana in the 1990s," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(7), pages 1252-1269.
    7. Jha,R., 2000. "Reducing Poverty and Inequality in India: Has Liberalization Helped?," Research Paper 204, World Institute for Development Economics Research.
    8. Iván Velásquez Castellanos & Dil Bahadur Rahut, 2012. "Household Welfare, Extreme and Chronic Poverty Between Indigenous Groups of Bolivia," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 4(2), pages 1-28, June.
    9. Francisco Javier Lasso V. & Cristian Camilo Frasser L., 2015. "Calidad del empleo y bienestar: un análisis con escalas de equivalencia," Revista ESPE - Ensayos Sobre Política Económica, Banco de la República, vol. 33(77), pages 117-132, June.
    10. François Gardes & Christophe Starzec, 2004. "La question de l'identification des échelles d'équivalence : une estimation du coût de l'enfant sur des données de panel," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques b04045, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    11. Stevens, Andrew W., 2017. "Quinoa quandary: Cultural tastes and nutrition in Peru," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 132-142.
    12. Mehmet Şahinli & Halil Fidan, 2012. "Estimation of food demand in Turkey: method of an almost ideal demand system," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 653-663, February.
    13. Joshua Angrist & Victor Lavy & Analia Schlosser, 2010. "Multiple Experiments for the Causal Link between the Quantity and Quality of Children," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(4), pages 773-824, October.
    14. Thaiyoong Penny Mok & Gillis Maclean & Paul Dalziel, 2013. "Alternative Poverty Lines for Malaysia," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 27(1), pages 85-104, March.
    15. Nguyen, Minh Cong & Winters, Paul, 2011. "The impact of migration on food consumption patterns: The case of Vietnam," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 71-87, February.
    16. Seebens, Holger, 2009. "Child Welfare and Old-Age Security in Female Headed Households in Tanzania," IZA Discussion Papers 3929, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Trevon D. Logan, 2011. "Economies Of Scale In The Household: Puzzles And Patterns From The American Past," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 49(4), pages 1008-1028, October.
    18. Bachas, Pierre & Gadenne, Lucie & Jensen, Anders, 2020. "Informality, Consumption Taxes and Redistribution," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1277, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    19. Keisuke Kawata & Leksay Keoyasan & Yuichiro Yoshida, 2014. "Expenditure Growth in Laos Between 1997 and 2008 : Is It Due to the Improvement of Social Factors or their Returns?," IDEC DP2 Series 4-5, Hiroshima University, Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation (IDEC).
    20. Amaza, P., 2018. "Impact on household food security of promoting sustainable agriculture among farming households in Borno State, Nigeria," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277204, International Association of Agricultural Economists.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:aaea99:21552. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.