An investigation of the increasing prevalence of nonpurchase of meat by British households

The purpose of the analysis has been to investigate the determinants of the household's decisions regarding the purchase of meat in Great Britain. The approach, using a Box-Cox generalization of the ‘double hurdle’ model, has depicted the household making two choices, namely whether or not to purchase the product (the participation decision) and then, for those households which do purchase, how much to buy (the expenditure decision). The determinants considered are socioeconomic variables, such as the total expenditure of the household, market prices, characteristics of the householder (age, gender, education, type of employment) and characteristics of the household (location, presence of children, etc.). By conducting the analysis over several years of survey data (1975–1993) it is possible to investigate whether the influence of these variables has changed over time. The bulk of the empirical analysis has concerned single adult households (with or without children).