Food-Away-from-Home Expenditure in Mexico during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Micro-Econometric Analysis

The propagation of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) reshaped the relationship between income and food-away-from-home (FAFH) expenditure in Mexico during 2020. Although the number of households participating in this market fell across income deciles and regions due to the pandemic, the impact on their budget shares is not uniform. Using data from the Encuesta Nacional de Ingresos y Gastos de los Hogares (ENIGH) 2020, we estimated an Engel curve of the Working-Lesser functional form for FAFH. Among the independent variables are the number of family members 65 years of age and older, and dummies to indicate whether the household experienced food insecurity or received remittances. The estimation was carried out following the Heckman two-step method, suitable for censored-response data. The results suggest that the budget share for FAFH drops as income increases. The number of older adults and food insecurity discourage the decision to participate in FAFH expenditure and increase its budget share, whereas remittances encourage participation and reduce its budget share. The corrected conditional elasticity is 0.4609; the sign and the magnitude indicate that FAFH is a necessity good.

Impact of price and non-price policies on household cigarette consumption and nutrient intake in smoking-tolerant Indonesia

ObjectiveTo examine the impact of cigarette price and smoking environment on allocation of household expenditure and its implication on nutrition consumption.DesignA cross-sectional study was conducted using the 2014 National Socioeconomic Survey (SUSENAS), the 2014 Village Potential Survey (PODES) and the 2013 Basic National Health Survey (RISKESDAS). SUSENAS and PODES data were collected by the Central Bureau of Statistics. RISKESDAS was conducted by National Institute of Health Research and Development (Balitbangkes), Indonesian Ministry of Health (MOH).Setting and participantsThe sample covered all districts in Indonesia; with sample size of 285 400 households. These households are grouped into low, medium and high smoking prevalence districts.Primary and secondary outcome measuresThe impact of cigarette price and smoking environment on household consumption of cigarette, share of eight food groups, as well as calorie and protein intake.Result1% increase in cigarette price will increase the cigarette budget share by 0.0737 points and reduce the budget share for eggs/milk, prepared food, staple food, nuts, fish/meat and fruit, from 0.0200 points (eggs/milk) up to 0.0033 points (fruit). Reallocation of household expenditure brings changes in food composition, resulting in declining calorie and protein intake. A 1% cigarette price increase reduces calorie and protein intake as much as 0.0885% and 0.1052%, respectively. On the other hand, existence of smoke-free areas and low smoking prevalence areas reduces the household budget for cigarettes.ConclusionA pricing policy must be accompanied by non-pricing policies to reduce cigarette budget share.

Are We Really Lacking the Effectiveness of Financial Resource Management in the Defence Sector?

Recently, the increase of spending in the sector of defence has opened up larger and larger spaces for the development / modernisation potential of individual countries. However, in this “resource overflow”, the effectiveness of the use of financial resources for defence is undermined. This study takes a look at the dangers of the ever-decreasing defence budget share (dangers well known in economics and well known in the field of defence sphere in the recent past) and the “free-rider effect” observed in different members states of the NATO (related to e.g. NATO Article 5) and reviews the effectiveness of financial resource management.

Modelling tourist expenditure at origin and destination

This article proposes a model of foreign tourist expenditure, based on expenditure in the country of origin (i.e. reservation of accommodation and transport) and on goods and services at the destination. The study focuses on two measures reflecting the two types of expenditure: the tourist budget share and the difference in growth rates between expenditure at origin and at destination. The random nature of each of these variables is taken into account. The tourist budget share is determined using a fractional response model, based on the beta distribution. This approach allows us to accommodate certain aspects of the empirical budget share distribution, such as skewness, and to represent the results as bounded between 0 and 1, but also to include covariates. The empirical analysis was conducted using data obtained by the Canary Islands Tourist Expenditure Survey, focusing on German and British tourists in particular. The results obtained show that the fractional regression model proposed represents the behaviour of the relevant variables reasonably well and surpasses the performance of the linear regression model.

Comparative Analysis of Food Expenditure Pattern of Nepalese Households Using Engel Curves

<p>The study examined the effects of demographic and non-demographic factors like income, family size, rural/urban location of household and gender of household head on consumption expenditure across 9 different food commodities. To analyze the food consumption behavior of Nepalese households National Living Standard Survey (NLSS) over two years 1995/96 and 2010/11 have been used. This study found that there have been significant changes in food consumption pattern in Nepal during these two periods. Food budget share of a household has declined over time. Budget share of cereals and pulses has shifted towards other food items such as fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy products and other miscellaneous food items. Result also shows that lower income households have higher expenditure elasticities of food compared to higher income households. Similarly, rural households have higher expenditure elasticities of food compared to urban households. For male and female headed households, expenditure elasticities are almost similar for major food categories. Diseconomies of scale are found in food expenditure as an additional family member would increase additional expenditure on food. The findings of this study are significant as they would serve as important policy guidelines and basis for further studies.</p><p>Journal of Business and Social Sciences Research, Vol. 2, No. 1 &amp; 2, pp. 27-46</p>

Prioritization of the essentials in the spending patterns of Canadian households experiencing food insecurity

ObjectiveFood insecurity is a potent determinant of health and indicator of material deprivation in many affluent countries. Food insecurity is associated with compromises in food and housing expenditures, but how it relates to other expenditures is unknown. The present study described households’ resource allocation over a 12-month period by food insecurity status.DesignExpenditure data from the 2010 Survey of Household Spending were aggregated into four categories (basic needs, other necessities, discretionary, investments/assets) and ten sub-categories (food, clothing, housing, transportation, household/personal care, health/education, leisure, miscellaneous, personal insurance/pension, durables/assets). A four-level food insecurity status was created using the adult-specific items of the Household Food Security Survey Module. Mean dollars spent and budget share by food insecurity status were estimated with generalized linear models adjusted first for household size and composition, and subsequently for after-tax income quartiles.SettingCanada.SubjectsPopulation-based sample of households from the ten provinces (n9050).ResultsFood-secure households had higher mean total expenditures than marginally, moderately and severely food-insecure households (P-trend <0·0001). As severity of food insecurity increased, households spent less on all categories and sub-categories, except transportation, but they allocated a larger budget share to basic needs and smaller shares to discretionary spending and investments/assets. The downward trends for dollars spent on basic needs and other necessities became non-significant after accounting for income, but the upward trend in the budget shares for basic needs persisted.ConclusionsThe spending patterns of food-insecure households suggest that they prioritized essential needs above all else.