A NOTE CONCERNING THE EFFECT OF INCOME DISTRIBUTION ON DEMAND

This note attempts to develop a method of measuring the impact of changes in income distribution on future demand, an important consideration when a country is experiencing a rapid rise in per capita income. Cross-sectional analysis utilising the Lorenz coefficient focuses on the impact of income inequality on the demand for mutton in urban Iran. It is hypothesised that long-term projections of demand using traditional methodology will over-estimate future consumption as a result of failure to consider deterioration in income distribution. The hypothesis is substantiated for this example. It is concluded that current income distribution and the alterations in income inequality which may accompany increased per capita income must be taken into account when estimating changes in aggregate future demand.     

An econometric analysis of rice consumption in the People's Republic of China

Rice is the most important staple food in the People's Republic of China (PRO. In many Asian countries rice appears to have become an inferior good, with income increases leading to declines in per capita consumption as other food products are substituted for rice. In this study, human rice consumption is analyzed with a model that allows income elasticities to vary with income levels. An additional equation accounting for rice disappearance as seed, livestock feed, industrial uses and exports is also estimated. The results of the analysis indicate that rice has become an inferior good in China and per capita consumption is likely to decline in the future. Population growth and the growing use of rice for other purposes means that total rice disappearance will continue to increase although at a rate that is slower than has historically been the case. The predicted changes in rice consumption will create pressures to adjust production and trade patterns for rice as well as other agricultural products.     

Economic development,food demand and the consequences for agricultural resource requirements: an application to Indonesia

We analyse food demand patterns of Indonesian households from a resource intensity perspective and quantify the impact of changed demand patterns on the use of three major resource inputs: fossil fuel; land; and water in agricultural production. Using Indonesian Family Life Survey data, 13 major food items (which constitute 70 per cent of food expenditure) are categorised into low, moderate and high resource intensity, and income elasticity and Engel curves are estimated for the period from 1997 to 2007. Our results show that income growth in Indonesia is associated with demand patterns that are more resource intensive. By 2007, per capita requirements of fossil fuel, land and water increased by 42.7 per cent (3.13 MJ), 44.9 per cent (1.24 m²) and 50.4 per cent (2.1 kL), respectively, relative to 1997. The results imply that, at least for Indonesia, changed food demand patterns resulting from economic development will increase the demand for natural resources substantially.     

Household Food Consumption in a Developing Economy:

The primary objective of this paper is to describe household rice consumption patterns in Nigeria with evidence from Imo State, determine the nature, magnitude and direction of income, price and cross price elasticities of demand, and examine the factors influencing household rice consumption. A budget survey of 50 randomly selected rural and urban households in Imo State, Nigeria, interviewed. The survey was repeated for 14 months between November 1984 and January 1986, providing the data used for analysis. There were significant differences between urban and rural household per capita daily rice consumption. Income (expenditure) elasticity of demand was greater than unity, and decreased, as expected, from low to high income groups. Household income was the most important determinant of food consumption. The implications of these findings for food and international trade policy are discussed.     

Changing food consumption patterns in rural and urban Vietnam: Implications for a future food supply system

Rapid income growth and urbanisation could significantly change the composition of the food basket in many emerging economies. This study estimates a demand system, including 15 major food items in Vietnam, with multiyear household survey data. We find a large variation in the estimated price elasticities (–0.05 to –0.88) and expenditure elasticities (–0.16 to 2.56). Food types, urban status and income groups can explain this variation. We also find that the staple food, rice, is already an inferior good for rich urban households in Vietnam. Moreover, food preferences are evolving away from rice but towards animal proteins (fish, pork, chicken, eggs and milk), fruits and vegetables, irrespective of urban status and income groups. As the Vietnam economy continues to grow with a doubling of gross domestic product (GDP) in the next decade, per capita rice consumption in both urban and rural areas and across different income groups will continue to decline, whereas demand for other high‐value products will rise. Thus, government policy should focus on encouraging demand‐oriented food production. In addition, crop diversification at the farm level needs to improve substantially to meet the rising demand for these food products due to income growth and urbanisation.     

全面停伐政策对国有林区居民家庭收入的影响

基于2014—2017年对东北、内蒙古国有林区的调研数据,采用双重差分模型(DID)评估全面停伐政策对国有林区居民家庭的人均工资性收入和家庭人均收入的影响。研究结果表明:全面停伐政策的实施对林区居民家庭人均工资性收入和人均收入均存在消极影响;家中有人在其他企事业单位上班有利于促进国有林区居民家庭人均工资性收入和人均收入的增长;从事农林经营不利于国有林区居民家庭人均工资性收入增长,虽然通过获得农林经营收入可以在一定程度上填补工资性收入的减少,但是对家庭人均收入无显著消极影响。因此,建议国家林业与草原局对国有林区居民家庭进行专项资金扶持;转岗分流安排富余劳动力;改变国有林区居民保守的就业观念并鼓励自主创业等。     

中国耕地供需变化规律研究

研究目的：探讨中国城市化 — 工业化用地需求和满足粮食安全的耕地供给之间的消长关系及变化规律,以期为国家土地利用政策提供科学依据。研究方法：首先提出关于最小人均耕地面积（即满足粮食安全的人均耕地需求）和耕地非农化逻辑斯蒂的假设。然后对历年中国耕地的统计数据进行订正,重建1980 — 2006年耕地数据序列。据此计算了同期的最小人均耕地面积和耕地压力指数（反映耕地需求和供给的对比关系）,并验证耕地非农化逻辑斯蒂假设。研究结果：保障粮食安全的人均耕地需求数量逐渐降低,耕地压力指数虽先降后升但总体呈下降趋势。中国在基本满足城市化 — 工业化用地需求和生态退耕,因而满足粮食安全需求的耕地供给不断减少,同时人口又不断增加的情况下,粮食安全状况非但没有恶化,反而有所改善;耕地压力指数非但没有加重,反而有所减轻,根本原因在于土地生产率的不断提高。耕地非农化逻辑斯蒂增长过程的推导和证明,显示了两个拐点分别出现在1980年和2050年,前者是从缓慢到加速的转折点;后者是从增长到停滞的转折点,保证粮食安全的耕地供给将趋于稳定。其间还有一个由加速到减缓的拐点将出现在2015年。研究结论：城市化 — 工业化用地需求和粮食安全用地需求可以兼顾。     

Advertising Expenditures and the Consumption of Alcoholic Beverages

The theory of consumer behavior is applied to the estimation of a demand svstem. Monthly data on alcoholic beverages (beer, wine, liquor, soft dhnks) from the province of Ontario in Canada are analyzed. Before estimating the linear approximate almost ideal demand system (LA/AIDS), unit root and cointegration tests are implemented. Budget shares, per capita advertising expenditures, real total expenditure, prices and per capita consumption are found to be non-stationary. The budget share, the advertising expenditures, the prices and the real total expenditure are cointegrated for each beverage. Own and cross-price elasticities, income elasticities and own and cross-advertising elasticities are calculated from the estimated or the demand system. Based on own-price elasticities and income elasticities, alcohol consumption is consistent with the law of demand and the products analyzed are normal goods. The estimation of income and advertising effects is important for analyzing the need for, and the effectiveness of, potential control policies. The advertising elasticities are small but statistically significant. This suggests that advertising may promote alcoholic beverage consumption. The estimated inelastic demands for beer and wine suggest that the primary purpose of high excise taxes levied by the Federal and Provincial governments is to raise government revenues and not to discourage consumption.     

西藏农牧民人均纯收入的影响因素分析

[目的]近年来,随着西藏经济快速、稳定、持续的发展。西藏农牧民生活水平有了显著的提高,对农牧民收入问题的研究成为了社会的热点问题。但是,对西藏农牧民收入问题的研究多以定性为主,文章力求从量化分析的角度对西藏农牧民收入问题进行研究。[方法]为了对西藏农牧民收入进行定量研究,该文就西藏农牧民收入现状进行了全面的调查和分析,在调查、分析的基础上选择具有代表性的农牧民人均纯收入、一产产值、二产产值、三产产值和农牧民人口数5个因素1998~2013年之间的时间序列数据进行研究,以西藏农牧民人均纯收入作为被解释变量,分别以一产产值、二产产值、三产产值和农牧民人口数作为解释变量,通过逐步回归的方法建立计量经济模型,消除共线性带来的影响。而后对模型进行检验、修正,对修正后的模型进行进一步的检验,模型通过了t检验,F检验,Dubin-Watson经验,拟合优度较高。[结果]结合当下西藏经济发展的现状得出农牧民收入与各解释变量之间的计量经济模型,并对模型进行实证分析,得出影响西藏农牧民增收的关键因素。[结论]通过分析可得,第二产业和第三产业的发展对西藏农牧民增收的作用较为显著,对第二产业和第三产业做进一步的分析,可以发现第二产业的推动作用尤为明显。第三产业产值每提高1%,西藏农牧民人均纯收入将提高5.643 362%,第二产业产值每提高1%,西藏农牧民人均纯收入将提高10.815 5%。回归结果与当下西藏经济发展现状及农牧民收入实际状况较为吻合。通过实证分析,并结合当下西藏经济发展状况,在该文最后对提高西藏农牧民人均纯收入提出相关的对策建议。     

Food Demand in Russia: Heterogeneous Consumer Segments over Time

The Russian food system has undergone substantial changes. However, knowledge on how economic transition has affected the structural parameters of food demand is lacking. Based on a two‐stage LES‐LA/AIDS model and annual panel data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (1995–2010), we provide a comprehensive set of food demand elasticities for Russia along two dimensions. First, we estimate demand parameters for three characteristic time periods in order to trace changes during transition. Second, to account for the Russian population's diversity, we derive elasticities for five different consumer segments. These groups are established by a cluster analysis based on households' food purchases. Our findings suggest that demand for food is far from satiated in Russia. We find generally high unconditional expenditure and own‐price elasticities for food. Both expenditure and own‐price elasticities show slight decreases in absolute terms over time. Low expenditure elasticities for staple foods like bread or cereals and high values for luxury goods such as meat, alcohol and tobacco suggest considerable changes in the composition of food baskets with further income growth. Results indicate that food production at home loses in importance while more affluent households in particular increase their demand for food consumption away from home.     

Effects of food consumption patterns on paddy field use in Taiwan

Societal metabolism and land use are significant and interrelated issues, and play a role in sustainable development. How a society's metabolism relates to local land use is typically affected by the particular context of the society under study, which is usually shaped by many factors, including economic, ecological, cultural, technological, and political factors. This study examines the effects of changes in food consumption patterns – decreasing per capita consumption of rice and increasing per capita consumption of wheat flour and meat – on the use of paddy fields in Taiwan. Although rice is grown domestically, wheat, which is a substitute for rice, is mainly imported. Moreover, the domestic livestock industry depends heavily on imported crops for low-cost feed. Accordingly, dietary changes have significantly decreased the demand for local paddy fields to grow crops. Additionally, the diversion of paddy fields to grow forage crops, which has been promoted by the Taiwanese government by guaranteeing prices for feed maize for 14 years, was discouraged when Taiwan joined the World Trade Organization in 2002, as Taiwan was required at that time to reduce by 20% its aggregate measure of support. The presented Taiwan case provides an empirical example of how a change in input characteristics (supply sources in a spatial dimension) of societal metabolism can, together with other factors, significantly affect local paddy fields, and discusses the underlying implications for sustainable development.     

Household Composition and Brazilian Food Purchases: An Expenditure System Approach

The use of household level data for food demand analysis requires the researcher to address issues such as purchase censoring and the impacts of household age/gender composition on such demand. This analysis adopts an estimation approach to modeling censored food expenditures. The major methodological contribution of this analysis is our incorporation of an endogenous equivalence scale measure within the expenditure system. Our empirical application is concerned with Brazilian household food expenditures. We use the estimated adult equivalence scales to evaluate a measure of household welfare represented by per-adult equivalent food expenditures. We find a significant shift of the distribution of per capita food distributions when comparing member count versus adult equivalent-based per capita distributions.     

中部6省人力资本投入对农民收入的影响力研究

农民收入是区域农村发展水平的重要指标,农村人力资本投入对农民收入增长有明显的促进作用。我国区域农村发展存在东中西差异。中部6省(山西、湖南、湖北、安徽、河南及江西)农民收入水平处于全国中上水平。深入分析中部6省人力资本对农民收入增长的作用,具有重要的现实意义。研究基于1998~2014年的时间序列数据,建立面板数据回归模型,实证分析中部6省人力资本投资对农民人均可支配收入、工资性收入以及家庭经营收入的影响。研究表明:中部6省农村人力资本投资对农民人均可支配收入、工资性收入和家庭经营收入的影响都在1%的水平下影响显著,其中农村人力资本投资对工资性收入的影响效应最大,除山西省外,影响值都达到1.0以上;农村人力资本投资对农民人均可支配收入影响次之,中部6省之间的影响效应值在0.65~0.95之间,山西省影响效应最低;农村人力资本投资对农民家庭经营收入的影响效应值最小,中部6省除山西省外,其他5个省份的影响效应均大于0.5。并提出加大农村人力资本投资,制定人力资本投资向农村倾斜的政策,加大宣传力度鼓励农民进行自主性人力资本投资,以及加大农村医疗基础建设,完善农村医保体系等一系列提高农村居民收入,实现城乡均衡发展的对策建议。     

消费者需求受食品质量与安全影响的讨论分析

近年来,国内经济发展迅速,人们生活水平也得到很大提升,使得人们越来越重视安全,而食品是人们生活中的基本物质保障,是人们生活的必需品,所以食品的质量与安全问题是当下最热门的话题之一。当前消费者的需求会受食品质量与安全的影响,频发的食品质量与安全问题让人们愈发重视食品质量与安全,消费者的需求渐渐发生变化。基于此,本文展开了关于食品质量与安全对消费者需求的影响的研究。     

An econometric analysis of demand for food quantity and quality in urban China

This article offers an analytical framework for studying consumer demand for food quality based on a theory‐consistent demand model, namely, the Exact Affine Stone Index specification. Importantly, it accounts for unobserved consumer and regional heterogeneity, and allows for arbitrary Engel curves. The empirical value of our framework is illustrated in an econometric analysis of demand for food quality in China. Evaluating possible structural changes in consumer food expenditures in China is of paramount importance, given the ever‐increasing global role of China and the implications of the structural food preference changes for the global food system. The major findings emerging from this study indicate that income is an important determinant of demand for food quality and quantity with the relatively more affluent provinces having a higher affinity for food quality.     

Do the BRICs and Emerging Markets Differ in their Agrifood Imports?

This study develops an import demand model to explore the role of income in explaining the trade performance of low‐, middle‐ and high‐income countries with a special emphasis on Brazil, Russia, India and China – the BRIC economies. The study estimates the impact of the growth in per capita income on the trade of agrifood products using data from 52 countries and 20 agrifood products for the years 1990–2006. The results suggest that China, Russia and Brazil now have more income elastic import demands than other middle‐income countries. Conversely, the income elasticities of import demand in India are similar to other low‐income countries and for the most part statistically equal to zero.     

The dynamics of household beef consumption in Cameroon

Recent changes in economic conditions have introduced notable changes in household beef consumption patterns in Cameroon. While consumers are concerned about the short- and long-run effects of these factors on beef consumption habits, policy makers are more worried about the appropriate period necessary for households to make complete adjustments in consumption since this information is vital for planning production. Static and dynamic demand frameworks involving the Nerlovian partial adjustment (PA) model are used to capture the dynamic nature of beef consumption parameters. Maximum likelihood estimates of the PA model reveal that the conditioning variables explain 79% of the variation in beef consumption. Income, previous consumption, own-price and prices of fish and pork are jointly important in explaining beef consumption habits. Beef is a normal good with pork and fish as substitutes and chicken as a complement. Long-run price and income elasticities are greater than but not significantly different from their short-run values, suggesting that adjustment in consumption is fast with about 80% of the difference between actual and ‘desired’ consumption being completed in about 2 years. Projections show that demand for beef will reach 109620 t by the year 2000. giving an incremental total and per capita demand of 31 730 tons and 1.84 kg, respectively.     

Contract farming: opportunity cost and trade‐offs

An important literature has established that participation in contract farming leads to higher incomes and has a number of other beneficial effects on the welfare of participating households. Yet no one has looked at the opportunity cost of and the various trade‐offs involved in participating in contract farming. I look at the relationship between participation in contract farming and income from (i) livestock, (ii) labor markets, (iii) nonfarm businesses, and (iv) agricultural sources other than livestock and contract farming and (v) unearned income. Using data from Madagascar, I find that participation in contract farming is associated with a 79% decrease in how much income per capita the average household derives from labor markets and a 47% decrease in how much income per capita it derives from nonfarm businesses, but also with a 51% increase in how much income per capita the average household derives from agricultural sources other than livestock and contract farming, possibly due to technological spillovers. Thus, even though contract farming has been shown to improve welfare in multiple ways in this context, it looks as though those gains come at the cost of an “agricultural involution” on the part of participating households, who seem to turn away from non‐agricultural activities. This has important implications for structural transformation narratives.     

The future of food demand: understanding differences in global economic models

Understanding the capacity of agricultural systems to feed the world population under climate change requires projecting future food demand. This article reviews demand modeling approaches from 10 global economic models participating in the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP). We compare food demand projections in 2050 for various regions and agricultural products under harmonized scenarios of socioeconomic development, climate change, and bioenergy expansion. In the reference scenario (SSP2), food demand increases by 59–98% between 2005 and 2050, slightly higher than the most recent FAO projection of 54% from 2005/2007. The range of results is large, in particular for animal calories (between 61% and 144%), caused by differences in demand systems specifications, and in income and price elasticities. The results are more sensitive to socioeconomic assumptions than to climate change or bioenergy scenarios. When considering a world with higher population and lower economic growth (SSP3), consumption per capita drops on average by 9% for crops and 18% for livestock. The maximum effect of climate change on calorie availability is ?6% at the global level, and the effect of biofuel production on calorie availability is even smaller.     

TOWARDS A BROADER UNDERSTANDING OF MEAT DEMAND — PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS

This paper sets out meat consumption trends in the United Kingdom and within other EU countries over the past 40 years; it shows that whereas in the UK meat consumption has only increased by a small amount, for other EU countries it has almost doubled. In analysing the data in more detail, it is apparent that ‘non-price/income’ factors have been playing a more important part both for the UK and other EU countries. It is true that in recent years there has been much more published empirical work on the effect of different attitude, demographic and structural factors on meat demand; commercial and Governmental organisations have also been collecting a significant amount of relevant unpublished data. However, there has not been much recent progress on integrated approaches which combine the analyses of the consumer behaviourist with those of the economist. The paper concludes by stating that this is an area of growing importance for the food industry and those interested in analysing food demand trends. Agricultural economists should therefore get more involved in it.