Impact of demographic dynamics on food consumption — A case study of energy intake in China

Most existing studies of food demand focus on economic factors, such as income and price. Physical factors which determine human energy intake requirement, given economic conditions, such as gender and age structures of the population as well as occupation, are usually not incorporated. While this is appropriate in the situation of a continuous, stable development of demographic structure, it might lead to biased result if drastic and irregular demographic changes have taken place. This paper provides a case study of China of the impact of demographic dynamics on the change of physical requirement and energy intake demand. The unique population pyramid in China, resulted from the big famine in the early 1960s and then the “One Child” policy” starting from the 1980s, has led to the irregular evolution of age groups and the consequent changes in the proportion of the “big-eaters”. As a result, given food price and income, the very age structure of the population at the time affects the overall weighted energy intake level of the population significantly. Using household survey data ranging from year 1991 to 2009, the index of Adult Male Equivalent Scale (AMES) is constructed to reflect the varying per capita physical requirement resulted from the demographic dynamic over the years in China. The AMES index, together with food price and income, has been applied to the per capita energy intake model. The empirical results show that the AMES index has statically strong impact on per capita energy intake, and the inclusion of the AMES index into the model has improved the model fitness. This finding sheds light on a possible way for improvement in projecting China's food demand in the future by incorporating the country's changing demographic factors.     

Consumption based estimates of urban Chinese growth

This paper estimates the household income growth rates implied by food demand in a sample of urban Chinese households in 1993–2005. Our estimates, based on Engel curves for food consumption, indicate an average per capita income growth of 6.8% per year in 1993–2005. This figure is slightly larger than the 5.9% per year obtained by deflating nominal incomes by the CPI. We attribute this discrepancy to a small bias in the CPI, which is of a similar magnitude to the one often associated with the CPI in the United States. This result supports the view that Chinese price statistics are reliable. Our estimates indicate stronger gains among poorer households, suggesting that urban inflation up to 2005 in China was “pro-poor,” in the sense that the increase in the cost of living for poorer households was smaller than for the average one.     

Estimating flexible consumption functions for urban and rural households in China

There are few comprehensive studies of household consumption in China that covers all commodities due to data restrictions. This prevents the calculation of inequality indices based on consumption. This lack of coverage also makes analysis of policies that affect consumption difficult; economy-wide models used for analysis often have to employ simple consumption forms with unit income elasticities. We estimate a translog demand system distinguished by demographic characteristics, giving price and income elasticities that should be useful for policy analysis. We estimate separate functions for urban and rural households using household expenditure data and detailed commodity prices (1995–2006). This allows future analysis of social welfare and inequality based on consumption to supplement existing studies based on income. To illustrate an application of the model, we project consumption composition based on projected prices, incomes and demographic changes – aging, education improvement and urbanization.     

The determinants of income inequality in Thailand: A synthetic cohort analysis

This paper presents tests and estimates of the human capital model of income inequality using synthetic cohort data for Thailand: 1992–2011. The model focuses on four primary determinants of income inequality: mean per capita income levels, the variances in years of education, in the number of children, and in the number of earners in the household. All of these factors are important sources of income inequality in Thailand, with relative impacts that differ across demographic groups and types of household structure. An inverted-U relation between mean per capita income levels and inequality is found, reflecting gender differences of the head of household, differences in household composition, and variation in access to finance. Although the human capital model emphasizes education, estimates presented here show other household characteristics, such as number of children and number of earners, can be even more important sources of inequality.     

The demand for residential domestic service in the London of 1901†

This article concerns the effect of income and other variables on the demand for residential domestic service in London in 1901 and presents the first estimated model of the demand for residential service known to the author. It uses previously unexploited data consisting of the incomes and household details of some 500 civil servants. An extension of Becker's model of household production is set out and an ordered probit statistical model of servant demand is estimated. The results confirm the importance of income but also show that the demographic composition of the household was of significance. These results are interpreted in terms of age‐ and gender‐related differences in the supply of labour and the demand for market goods. The results are consistent with the view that middle‐class Edwardian households should be understood as sites of production as well as consumption. A comparison of the statistical results with contemporary recommendations in manuals of household management suggests that those recommendations were typically over‐optimistic. The article presents a ‘ready reckoner’ whereby household income may be estimated from the number of resident servants, but caution in its use is urged.     

Income,Food Consumption and Estimation of Energy and Protein Intake of Households: A Study Based on the 1975 and 1980 Indonesian Social Accounting Matrices 1

This paper uses the Social Accounting Matrices for 1975 and 1980 prepared by the Central Bureau of Statistics to examine the links between household income and food consumption. The main finding is that, although the average energy and protein intake of the population was already above the minimum requirements in both 1975 and 1980, there existed some household groups which consumed less, including households which were above the assumed poverty line in terms of per capita disposable income.     

The Invisible Hand of Rain in Spending: Effect of Rainfall‐Driven Agricultural Income on Per Capita Expenditure in Ghana

This paper uses a nationally representative household pseudo‐panel dataset for Ghana, a rain‐fed agriculture economy, to investigate whether there is a positive relationship between rainfall‐driven agricultural income and household per capita expenditure. By using the Two Stage Least Squares Instrumental Variable (2SLS‐IV) estimator, it is found that a fall in rainfall‐driven agricultural income leads to a decrease in per capita expenditure. The results show that the gender and the locality of the household head matter in the response of per capita expenditures to rainfall‐driven agricultural income. Female‐headed and rural households are more vulnerable to rainfall‐driven agricultural income changes. The expenditure disaggregation indicates that female‐headed households significantly reduce per capita non‐food expenditure in times of rainfall‐induced agricultural income decrease whilst the response of male‐headed households focuses more on reducing per capita food and remittance expenditures.     

Determinants of fertility in developing countries

The contribution of agricultural modernization to changes in fertility in developing countries was examined. A model for the determinants of both fertility and infant mortality--hypothesized to be positively related--was specified and applied to cross-sectional data for 75 developing countries for the year 1971. The infant mortality rate, productivity per unit of labor and land, and density of population for agricultural land were highly correlated with the crude birth rate. The only other exogenous variables highly correlated with each other were productivity per unit of labor and infant mortality, and productivity per unit of land and population density for agricultural areas. The coefficient of population density of agricultural areas suggested a negative impact of density on fertility. The infant mortality rate, productivity per unit of land and labor, and density of population of agricultural areas explained 85% of the intercountry variation in fertility. The infant mortality rate, productivity of land, and productivity of labor were of descending order of importance in determining the crude birth rates in the countries analyzed. 68% of the intercountry variation in infant mortality was explained by fertility, adult literacy, per capita energy consumption, gini-coefficient of income distribution, population per hospital bed, and protein supply. Adult literacy, crude birth rates, population per hospital bed, per capita energy consumption, per capita protein supply, and gini-coefficient of income distribution were of descending order of importance in determining infant mortality rates. All of the variables that affected infant mortality directly affected fertility indirectly; conversely, all the variables that affected fertility directly affected infant mortality indirectly. Overall, these results confirm that agricultural modernization does exert an effect on fertility. The task in developing countries is to break the vicious cycle of infant mortality and fertility. This can be achieved both through family planning programs and the diffusion of health programs to lower infant mortality.     

Patterns of poverty in South Africa

This article brings together results from two large household surveys ‐ the October Household Survey and the Income and Expenditure Survey of 1995. The analysis adopts a simple definition of income poverty which allows comparisons between households in ten deciles defined on the basis of per capita household income. The analysis compares access to resources such as housing and land, and access to basic services across these households. It then examines the economic status of women and men living in households with different incomes. The article shows consistent correlation of per capita income with other examined variables. It illustrates further how women within each decile are disad‐vantagedcomparedwith men in terms of economic status and earning.     

A model of endowment-constrained demand for food in an agricultural economy with empirical applications to Bangladesh

This paper explores the relationship between distribution of assets and systematic undernutrition in rural populations. A formal theoretical model is developed to explore the impact of short-term price changes on the nutrition of various economic classes. An empirical simulation model is developed for rural Bangladesh using data from the agricultural census, the land occupancy survey and two household demand surveys. This model links endowments like land, labor and livestock to demand for food using prices and incomes and intermediate variables. The results suggest that the landless would consume about half their minimum requirements even if production were 50% above requirements and prices remained stable. When prices rise the picture gets much worse. Of course this analysis precludes assistance from better-off neighbors or the state but it demonstrates conclusively how much of starvation is due to income and asset distribution rather than shortfalls in food availability per capita. Increased production of food while providing some necessary conditions for eliminating starvation do not provide sufficient conditions. Prices and incomes have to be taken into account.     

Broadcast Advertising and U.S. Demand for Alcoholic Beverages

Quarterly data for 1977-1994 on alcohol consumption and advertising are used to estimate a differential demand system, including explanatory variables for broadcast advertising and print advertising. The model explains the growth rate of per capita consumption dependent on explanatory variables for prices, real income, demographic changes, and real advertising by media and beverage. Empirical results also are reported for total consumption of pure alcohol. The results for the three beverages and total alcohol indicate that advertising has little or no effect on demand. The empirical evidence thus supports the notion that regardless of media, advertising affects mainly brand shares.     

Understanding High Saving Rate in China

This paper presents a detailed analysis of the Chinese saving rate based on the flow of funds data. It finds that the most widely adopted view of precautionary saving, which is regarded as the top reason for maintaining a high saving rate in China, is misleading because this conclusion is drawn from the household survey data. In fact, the household saving rate has declined dramatically since the mid‐1990s, as is observed from the flow of funds framework. The high national saving rate is attributed to the increasing shares of both government and corporation disposable incomes. Insufficient consumption demand is caused by the persistent decrease in percentage share of household to national disposable income. Government‐ directed income redistribution urgently needs to be improved to accelerate consumption, which in turn would make the Chinese economy less investment‐led and help to reduce the current account surplus. (Edited by Zhinan Zhang)     

Demographic Transition in China and its Implications

The aim of this paper is to chart the demographic transition in China, identify its proximate causes and analyze its socioeconomic implications with reference to, first, the proportion and composition of the dependent population, second, the age structure of the labor force and, third, the size and composition of households. Defined as a steady deceleration in population growth to a nonrising total, the onset of the demographic transition in 1970 predates the one-child policy. Thus far the transition has had its largest impact on the proportion of children in the population, which has fallen. Next in magnitude is a rise of in the share of working-age adults. These two changes dwarf the rise in the share of the elderly on which much of the discussion in China tends to be focused. The crude dependency ratio has been falling and will continue to do so for another two decades or so. It is pointed out that the change in the age structure has significant distributive implications. The last 20 or so years have seen a substantial change the size distribution of households. The average household has shrunk in size from 4.5 in 1982 to 3.5. This is important because the distribution of the population into households has a significant impact on the household expenditure pattern. In particular, controlling for per capita expenditure, smaller households spend more on food per capita than do larger households.     

A Bite of China: Food consumption and carbon emission from 1992 to 2007

In conjunction with the rapid rise in household food expenditures per capita, China's food consumption has increased greatly. At the same time, dietary patterns have changed dramatically, as between 1992 and 2007 China underwent a transition to a more animal-based westernized diet. This rise in food consumption and shift in dietary structure may contribute substantially to climate change. In this paper, an input-output model is used to explore the food-related carbon emissions of Chinese urban households in 1992 and 2007. The results indicate that the physical volume of and economic expenditures on food consumption have increased by 20.7% and 35.9%, respectively. However, food-related carbon emissions per capita in 2007 had decreased nearly 21% compared to emissions in 1992. Based on parametric estimates of environmental Engel Curves and the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, the variation in household income may lead to a hypothetical carbon emissions increase of 1.694 tons. However, the improvement in energy use efficiency had offset the impact from income growth and dietary transition and led to the drop in China's food-related carbon emissions from 1992 to 2007.     

城乡居民消费水平的影响因素分析

本文在对影响我国城乡居民消费水平主要因素进行分析的基础上,借助凯恩斯的消费函数表达式,采用1985～2009年我国城乡居民人均收入与消费的时间序列数据和2009年我国城乡居民人均收入与消费的省级面板数据,实证分析了我国居民收入水平对其消费的影响。实证分析结果表明,城乡居民的边际消费倾向都比较接近1,表明城乡居民收入水平对其消费水平有显著的正向影响。实证分析结果也显示,城镇居民自生消费水平明显高于农村居民,表明城乡居民存在明显的收入差距。因此,增加城乡居民收入,特别是增加农村居民收入,缩小城乡居民收入差距对提高我国居民整体消费水平有重要现实意义。     

The consequences of health shocks on households: Evidence from China

Unexpected health shocks may bring catastrophic consequences for households. This paper examines the effect of unexpected adverse health shocks on household members' physical and mental health, labor supply, household income and asset, and health behaviors in China by analyzing two nationally representative datasets and adopting a difference-in-differences method augmented with coarsened exact matching. We find that an unexpected health shock results in a discounted out-of-pocket medical expenditure of 16,943 RMB (US$ 2647) over five years for an average household, a reduction of household income per capita of 841 RMB per year (US$ 131, or 6.0% of household annual income per capita), and a loss of net household asset per capita of 13,635 RMB (US$ 2130, or 9.7% of household asset per capita). It raises the probability of an average household applying for public poverty relief allowance by 2.8 percentage points. In addition, we document a strong intra-household spillover effect of health shocks on mental health and health behaviors. A simple back-of-envelope calculation shows that the health shock induces a private cost of 34,966 RMB (US$ 5463) over 5 years for an average household, and incurs a social financial burden of 6066 RMB (US$ 948) in 5 years per household in medical reimbursement and social welfare transfers. At a national scale, the total social burden of health shocks from cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases amounts to 1.1 trillion RMB (US$ 172.1 billion) over 5 years.     

北京汽车消费需求的动态分析与预测

北京汽车消费进入快速增长时期,主要是私人汽车消费拉动了汽车消费总量的增长。北京汽车拥有量、私人汽车拥有量与地区人均GDP、人均可支配收入和公路客运量高度相关。计量分析表明,人均GDP、人均可支配收入对北京汽车消费、私人汽车消费的需求弹性影响显著。从长期来看,私人汽车消费需求的长期弹性值均大于1,富有弹性。预测结果显示,私人汽车消费需求仍处于大幅度增长的范围。     

American colonial incomes, 1650–1774

New data now allow conjectures on the levels of real and nominal incomes in the 13 American colonies. New England was the poorest region, and the South was the richest. Colonial per capita incomes rose only very slowly if at all, for five reasons: productivity growth was slow; population in the low‐income (but subsistence‐plus) frontier grew much faster than that in the high‐income coastal settlements; child dependency rates were high and probably even rising; the terms of trade were extremely volatile, presumably suppressing investment in export sectors; and the terms of trade rose very slowly, if at all, in the North, although faster in the South. All of this checked the growth of colony‐wide per capita income after a seventeenth‐century boom. The American colonies led Great Britain in purchasing power per capita from 1700, and possibly from 1650, until 1774, even counting slaves in the population. That is, average purchasing power in America led Britain early, when Americans were British. The common view that American per capita income did not overtake that of Britain until the start of the twentieth century appears to be off the mark by two centuries or more.     

Evidence of short-term household change in South Africa from the National Income Dynamics Study

We use longitudinal data from the National Income Dynamics Study to document the extent of recent short-term residential and household compositional change in South Africa. We analyse the demographic correlates of these transitions, including population group, age, urban/rural status, and income. We examine educational and labour-market transitions among movers and the prevalence of the four major types of compositional change – births, addition of joiners, deaths, and loss of leavers. We find that short-term household change is prevalent in South Africa. During a two-year period from 2008 to 2010, 10.5% of South Africans moved residence and 61.3% experienced change in household composition. We find that moving is more common among blacks and whites, very young children, young adults, urban individuals, and those with higher incomes. Among non-movers, compositional change is more likely for blacks and coloureds, young adults and children, females, urban individuals, and individuals with lower incomes.