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Estimating the Relationship between Food Prices and Food Consumption—Methods Matter
Author(s) -
Cornelsen Laura,
Mazzocchi Mario,
Green Rosemary,
Dangour Alan D.,
Smith Richard D.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
applied economic perspectives and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.4
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 2040-5804
pISSN - 2040-5790
DOI - 10.1093/aepp/ppw010
Subject(s) - economics , elasticity (physics) , econometrics , price elasticity of demand , consumption (sociology) , food prices , food policy , food consumption , regression analysis , meta regression , public economics , meta analysis , microeconomics , agricultural economics , food security , medicine , statistics , mathematics , agriculture , social science , materials science , sociology , composite material , ecology , biology
Concerns about the growing prevalence of obesity worldwide have led researchers and policy makers to investigate the potential health impact of fiscal policies such as taxes on unhealthy foods. A common instrument used to measure the relationship between food prices and food consumption is the price elasticity of demand. Using meta‐regression analysis we assessed how differences in methodological approaches to estimating demand affected food price elasticities. Most methodological differences had a statistically significant impact on elasticity estimates, which stresses the importance of using meta‐estimates or testing the sensitivity of simulation outcomes to a range of elasticity parameters before drawing policy conclusions.