How the Income Elasticity of Meat Consumption differs between social groups? A case of the UK and the Czech Republic

How the Income Elasticity of Meat Consumption differs between social groups? A case of the UK and the Czech Republic

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7160/aol.2021.130409

How to Cite

How the Income Elasticity of Meat Consumption differs between social groups? A case of the UK and the Czech Republic. (2021). AGRIS on-Line Papers in Economics and Informatics, 13(4), 101-117. https://doi.org/10.7160/aol.2021.130409

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to show different consumer behaviour between ten different income levels (deciles) and different countries and to examine the elasticity distance between income deciles in the UK (a high-income country) and the Czech Republic (a low-income country) within the context of meat consumption. The official statistic services provided data in the Czech Republic (Czech Statistical Office, 2020) and the UK (Office for National Statistics, 2020). Data on the Czech Republic come from the household budget surveys (HBS). In contrast, corresponding data on UK consumers was drawn from the Living Costs and Food survey, which succeeded the National food survey and household expenditure survey. Both sets of data were set according to households’ structure from the EU-SILC Survey (national module of the European Union – Statistics on Income and Living Conditions). To estimate the income elasticity of meat in the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom in different consumer income groups, a time series cointegration analysis was applied to analyse the annual data for 2000-2017. The Törnquist equation and the difference between income elasticity in monetary and natural expression show saturation and preference of high quality meat in the higher-income consumers in the UK than the same groups in the Czech Republic and overall increasing demand for quality in other income groups. The results support the theory of nutrition transitions. The value of the research is that it would enable the exploration of the potential impact and nature of fiscal interventions for improving diets whilst enabling food producers to forecast meat consumption within the different customer segments.

References

Aftab, S., Yaseen, M. R. and Anwar, S. (2017) "Impact of rising food prices on consumer welfare in the most populous countries of South Asia", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 44, No. 8, pp. 1062-1077. ISSN 0306-8293. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSE-01-2016-0016

Andreyeva, T., Long, M. W. and Brownell, K. D. (2010) "The impact of food prices on consumption: A systematic review of research on the price elasticity of demand for food", American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 100, No. 2, pp. 216-222. ISSN 0090-0036. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2008.151415

Benda Prokeinova, R. and Hanova, M. (2016) "Modelling consumer’s behaviour of the meat consumption in Slovakia", Agricultural Economics - Czech, Vol. 62, No. 5, pp. 235-245. ISSN 0139-570X. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17221/33/2015-AGRICECON

Blazkova, I. (2016) "Convergence of Market Concentration: Evidence from Czech Food Processing Sectors", AGRIS on-line Papers in Economics and Informatics, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 25-36. ISSN 1804-1930. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7160/aol.2016.080403

Bouvard, V., Loomis, D., Guyton, K. Z., Grosse, Y., Ghissassi, F. El, Benbrahim-Tallaa, L., Straif, K. (2015) "Carcinogenicity of consumption of red and processed meat", The Lancet Oncology, Vol. 16, No. 16, pp. 1599-1600. ISSN 1407-2045. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(15)00444-1

Breusch, T. S. and Godfrey, L. G. (1986) "Data Transformation Tests", The Economic Journal, Vol. 96, pp. 47. ISSN 0013-0133. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2232969

Christensen, L. R., Jorgenson, D. W. and Lau, L. J. (1975) "Transcendental Logarithmic Utility Functions", The American Economic Review, Vol. 65, No. 3, pp. 367-383. ISSN 0002-8282.

Clements, K. W. and Si, J. (2016) "Price Elasticities of Food Demand: Compensated vs Uncompensated", Health Economics, Vol. 25, No. 11, pp. 1403-1408. ISSN 1057-9230. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.3226

Clonan, A., Wilson, P., Swift, J. A., Leibovici, D. G. and Holdsworth, M. (2015) "Red and processed meat consumption and purchasing behaviours and attitudes: impacts for human health, animal welfare and environmental sustainability", Public Health Nutrition, Vol. 18, No. 13, pp. 2446-2456. ISSN 1368-9800. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980015000567

Colen, L., Melo, P. C., Abdul-Salam, Y., Roberts, D., Mary, S. and Gomez Y Paloma, S. (2018) "Income elasticities for food, calories and nutrients across Africa: A meta-analysis", Food Policy, Vol. 77, No. May, pp. 116-132. ISSN 0306-9192. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2018.04.002

Cook, E. (2018) "Agriculture, forestry and fishery statistics", 2018 ed., Brussels, Publications Office of the EU. ISBN 978-92-79-94757-5. ISSN 2363-2488. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2785/340432

Cupák, A., Pokrivčák, J. and Rizov, M. (2015) "Food demand and consumption patterns in the new EU member states: The case of Slovakia", Ekonomicky Casopis, Vol. 63, No. 4, pp. 339-358. ISSN 0013-3035.

Czech Statistical Office (2020) "Meat consumption statistics by income deciles". [Online]. Available: https://www.czso.cz/csu/czso/statisticka-rocenka-ceske-republiky-2020 [Acessed: Jan 15, 2021].

Darnell, A. C. (1994) "A Dictionary of Econometrics", Edward Elgar Pub. ISBN 9781852783891.

De Agostini, P. (2014) "The effect of food prices and household income on the British diet", ISER Working Paper Series, Vol. 2014, No. 1. E-ISSN 2435-0982.

De Backer, C. J. S. and Hudders, L. (2015) "Meat morals: relationship between meat consumption consumer attitudes towards human and animal welfare and moral behavior", Meat Science, Vol. 99, pp. 68-74. ISSN 0309-1740. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.meatsci.2014.08.011

De Zhou, Yu, X., Abler, D. and Chen, D. (2018) "Projecting meat and cereals demand for China based on a meta-analysis of income elasticities", China Economic Review, No. Dec., pp. 1-15. ISSN 1043-951X. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2017.12.002

Deaton, A. and Muellbauer, J. (1980) "An Almost Ideal Demand System", The American Economic Review, Vol. 70, No. 3, pp. 312-326. ISSN 0002-8282.

Dickey, D. A. and Fuller, W. A. (1979) "Distribution of the Estimators for Autoregressive Time Series With a Unit Root", Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 74, No. 366, pp. 427-431. ISSN 0162-1459. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2286348

Dubihlela, D. (2014) "The Impact Of Price Changes On Demand Among Poor Households In A South African Township", Vol. 13, No. 3. ISSN 1535-0754. DOI: https://doi.org/10.19030/iber.v13i3.8586

Engle, R. F. and Granger, C. W. J. (1987) "Co-Integration and Error Correction: Representation, Estimation, and Testing", Econometrica, Vol. 55, No. 2, pp. 251-276. ISSN 0012-9682. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1913236

Etemadi, A., Sinha, R., Ward, M. H., Graubard, B. I., Inoue-Choi, M., Dawsey, S. M. and Abnet, C. C. (2017) "Mortality from different causes associated with meat, heme iron, nitrates, and nitrites in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study: population based cohort study", BMJ-British Medical Journal. ISSN 1756-1833. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.j1957

Euromonitor International (2018) "Processed Meat and Seafood in Czech Republic", Passport, No. Nov. [Online]. Available: http://www.portal.euromonitor.com.ez.unisabana.edu.co/portal/analysis/tab. [Acessed: Jan 15, 2021].

Farchi, S., De Sario, M., Lapucci, E., Davoli, M. and Michelozzi, P. (2017) "Meat consumption reduction in Italian regions: Health co-benefits and decreases in GHG emissions", PLoS ONE, Vol. 12, No. 8, pp. 1-20. ISSN 1932-6203. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0182960

Gallant, A. R. (1981) "On the bias in flexible functional forms and an essentially unbiased form", Journal of Econometrics, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 211-245. ISSN 0304-4076. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-4076(81)90115-9

Gerber, P. J., Steinfeld, H., Henderson, B., Mottet, A., Opio, C., Dijkman, J., Falcucci, A. and Tempio, G. (2013) "Tackling climate change through livestock - A global assessment of emissions and mitigation opportunities", Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome. E-ISBN 978-92-5-107921-8, ISBN 978-92-5-107920-1. [Online]. Available: http://www.fao.org/3/i3437e/i3437e00.htm [Acessed: Jan 10, 2021].

Godfray, H. C. J., Aveyard, P., Garnett, T., Hall, J. W., Key, T. J., Lorimer, J., Pierrehumbert, R. J., Scarborough, P., Springmann, M. and Jebb, S. A. (2018) "Meat consumption, health, and the environment", Science (New York, N.Y.), Vol. 361, No. 6399. ISSN 0036-8075. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aam5324

Green, R., Cornelsen, L., Dangour, A. D., Honorary, R. T., Shankar, B., Mazzocchi, M. and Smith, R. D. (2013) "The effect of rising food prices on food consumption: systematic review with meta-regression", BMJ-British Medical Journal, Vol. 347, No. 7915, pp. 1-9. ISSN 1756-1833. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.f3703

Hálová, P. (2006) "The analysis of consumer behavior with Törnquist functions using for choice food products", In Agrarian Perspectives XV - Foreign trade and globalization processes, pp. 168-173.

Hálová, P. (2015) "Analysis of flowers production and consumption determinants in Czech Republic", Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, Vol. 63, No. 3, pp. 903-913. ISSN 1221-8516. DOI: https://doi.org/10.11118/actaun201563030903

Harding, M. and Lovenheim, M. (2017) "The effect of prices on nutrition: Comparing the impact of product- and nutrient-specific taxes", Journal of Health Economics, Vol. 53, pp. 53-71. ISSN 0167-6296. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2017.02.003

Hovhannisyan, V. and Gould, B. W. (2014) "Structural change in urban Chinese food preferences", Agricultural Economics, Vol. 45, No. 2, pp. 159-166. ISSN 0169-5150. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/agec.12038

Hupková, D., Bielik, P. and Turčeková, N. (2009) "Structural changes in the beef meat demand in Slovakia and demand elasticity estimation", Agricultural Economics - Czech, Vol. 55, No. 8, pp. 361-367. ISSN 0139-570X. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17221/41/2009-AGRICECON

Jarque, C. M. and Bera, A. K. (1980) "Efficient tests for normality, homoscedasticity and serial independence of regression residuals", Economics Letters, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 255-259. ISSN 0165-1765. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/0165-1765(80)90024-5

Konig, B. and Dovadova, G. (2016) "Trends in household consumption inequalities in Slovakia: Empirical evidence", Ekonomicky Casopis, Vol. 64, No. 3, pp. 238-259. ISSN 0013-3035.

Kubicová, Ľ., Kádeková, Z., Nagyová, Ľ. and Stávková, J. (2011) "The Income situation of the private households and its impact on the food consumption in the Slovak Republic", Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, Vol. 59, No. 7, pp. 217-224. ISSN 1221-8516. DOI: https://doi.org/10.11118/actaun201159070217

Kučerová, V. and Zeman, J. (2013) "Cenová elasticita poptávky jako nástroj pro plánování úspěšných akčních slev Price Elasticity of Demand as a Tool for Planning of Successful Promotional Discounts", Trendy Ekonomiky a Managementu, Vol. VII, No. 17, pp. 101-113. ISSN 1802-8527. (In Czech).

Li, L., Song, Z. and Ma, C. (2015) "Engel curves and price elasticity in urban Chinese Households", Economic Modelling, Vol. 44, pp. 236-242. ISSN 0264-9993. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econmod.2014.10.002

Lundberg, J. and Lundberg, S. (2012) "Distributional Effects of Lower Food Prices in a Rich Country: Calculations Based on Estimates of Household Demand for Food", Journal of Consumer Policy, Vol. 35, No. 3, pp. 373-391. ISSN 0168-7034. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10603-012-9193-x

Marquer, P., Rabade, T. and Forti, R. (2015) "Meat production statistics", Brussels. [Online]. Available: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/pdfscache/28947.pdf. [Acessed: Jan 10, 2021].

Mathijs, E. (2015) "Exploring future patterns of meat consumption", Meat Science, Vol. 109, pp. 112-116. ISSN 0309-1740. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.meatsci.2015.05.007

Mekonnen, M. M. and Hoekstra, A. Y. (2012) "A Global Assessment of the Water Footprint of Farm Animal Products", Ecosystems, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 401-415. ISSN 1432-9840. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-011-9517-8

Melina, V., Craig, W. and Levin, S. (2016) "Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: Vegetarian Diets", Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Vol. 116, No. 12, pp. 1970-1980. ISSN 2212-2672. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jand.2016.09.025

Milford, A. B., Le Mouël, C., Bodirsky, B. L. and Rolinski, S. (2019) "Drivers of meat consumption", Appetite, Vol. 141, No. June. ISSN 0195-6663. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2019.06.005

Ministry of Agriculture (2020) "The statistical report of the Czech agriculture", Prague: Ministry of Agriculture, internal document.

Mizdrak, A., Scarborough, P., Waterlander, W. E. and Rayner, M. (2015) "Differential responses to food price changes by personal characteristic: A systematic review of experimental studies", PLoS ONE, Vol. 10, No. 7, pp. 1-20. ISSN 1932-6203. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0130320

Muhammad, A., D'Souza, A., Meade, B., Micha, R. and Mozaffarian, D. (2017) "How income and food prices influence global dietary intakes by age and sex: evidence from 164 countries", BMJ Global Health, Vol. 2, No. 3. ISSN 2059-7908. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2016-000184

Niebylski, M. L., Redburn, K. A., Duhaney, T. and Campbell, N. R. (2015) "Healthy food subsidies and unhealthy food taxation: A systematic review of the evidence", Nutrition, Vol. 31, No. 6, pp. 787-795. ISSN 0899-9007. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nut.2014.12.010

Norton, E. (2020) "UK meat consumption. The UK consumes more beef than a decade ago". [Online]. Available: https://www.savills.co.uk/research_articles/229130/298951-0. [Acessed: Jan 15, 2021].

OECD (2020) "Meat consumption". [Online]. Available at https://data.oecd.org/agroutput/meat-consumption.htm. [Acessed: Jan 15, 2021].

Pearce, D. W. (ed.) (1986) "Macmillan Dictionary of Modern Economics", London: Macmillan Education UK. ISBN 9780333417485. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18424-8

Popkin, B. M. (2006) "Global nutrition dynamics: the world is shifting rapidly toward a diet linked with noncommunicable diseases", The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 84, No. 2, pp. 289-298. ISSN 0002-9165. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/84.2.289

Regmi, A. and Meade, B. (2013) "Demand side drivers of global food security", Global Food Security, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 166-171. ISSN 2211-9124. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2013.08.001

Ren, Y., Zhang, Y., Loy, J.-P. and Glauben, T. (2018) "Food consumption among income classes and its response to changes in income distribution in rural China", China Agricultural Economic Review, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 406-424. ISSN 1756-137X. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/CAER-08-2014-0079

Rohrmann, S., Overvad, K., Bueno-de-Mesquita, H. B., Jakobsen, M. U., Egeberg, R., Tjønneland, A., Linseisen, J. (2013) "Meat consumption and mortality - results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition", BMC Medicine, Vol. 11, No. 1, 63 p. ISSN 1741-7015. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-11-63

Salotti, S., Montinari, L., Amores, A. F. and Rueda-Cantuche, J. M. (2015) "Total expenditure elasticity of non-durable consumption of European households", European Union: JRC Technical Report EUR 27081 EN.

Santeramo, F. G., Carlucci, D., De Devitiis, B., Seccia, A., Stasi, A., Viscecchia, R. and Nardone, G. (2018) "Emerging trends in European food, diets and food industry", Food Research International, Vol. 104, No. October 2017, pp. 39-47. ISSN 0963-9969. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodres.2017.10.039

Smed, S., Jensen, J. D. and Denver, S. (2007) "Socio-economic characteristics and the effect of taxation as a health policy instrument", Food Policy, Vol. 32, No. 5-6, pp. 624-639. ISSN 0306-9192. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2007.03.002

Spicka, J. (2016) "Market Concentration and Profitability of the Grocery Retailers in Central Europe", Central European Business Review, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 5-24. ISSN 1805-4854. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18267/j.cebr.155

Spicka, J. and Naglova, Z. (2017) "Consumers´ preference of quality and pice in buying meat and meat products", Maso, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 50-54. ISSN 1210-4086.

Springmann, M., Mason-D'Croz, D., Robinson, S., Wiebe, K., Godfray, H. C. J., Rayner, M. and Scarborough, P. (2018) "Health-motivated taxes on red and processed meat: A modelling study on optimal tax levels and associated health impacts", PLoS ONE, Vol. 13, No. 11, pp. 1-16. ISSN 1932-6203. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0204139

Steenhuis, I. H., Waterlander, W. E. and de Mul, A. (2011) "Consumer food choices: the role of price and pricing strategies", Public Health Nutrition, Vol. 14, No. 12, pp. 2220-2226. ISSN 1368-9800. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980011001637

Syrovátka, P. (2012) "Income elasticity of demand within individual consumer groups and the level of income elasticity of the entire market demand", Agricultural Economics - Czech, Vol. 52, No. No. 9, pp. 412-417. ISSN 0139-570X. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17221/5044-AGRICECON

Thow, A. M., Jan, S., Leeder, S. and Swinburn, B. (2010) "The effect of fiscal policy on diet, obesity and chronic disease: a systematic review", Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Vol. 88, No. 8, pp. 609-614. ISSN 0042-9686. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2471/BLT.09.070987

Tiffin, R. and Arnoult, M. (2010) "The demand for a healthy diet: estimating the almost ideal demand system with infrequency of purchase", European Review of Agricultural Economics, Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 501-521. ISSN 0165-1587. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/erae/jbq038

Tiffin, R. and Arnoult, M. (2011) "The public health impacts of a fat tax", European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 65, No. 4, pp. 427-433. ISSN 0954-3007. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2010.281

Tiffin, R., Balcombe, K., Salois, M. and Kehlbacher, A. (2011) "Estimating Food and Drink Elasticities", University of Reading. [Online]. Available: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment%7B_%7Ddata/file/137726/defra-stats-foodfarm-food-price-elasticities-120208.pdf%5Cnhttps://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/137726/defra-stats-foodfarm-food-pr. [Acessed: Jan 8, 2021].

Türkekul, B. and Unakitan, G. (2011) "A co-integration analysis of the price and income elasticities of energy demand in Turkish agriculture", Energy Policy, Vol. 39, No. 5, pp. 2416-2423. ISSN 0301-4215. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2011.01.064

Ulubasoglu, M., Mallick, D., Wadud, M., Hone, P. and Haszler, H. (2015) "Food demand elasticities for Australia", The Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Vol. 60, No. 2, pp. 177-195. ISSN 1364-985X. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8489.12111

Vranken, L., Avermaete, T., Petalios, D. and Mathijs, E. (2014) "Curbing global meat consumption: Emerging evidence of a second nutrition transition", Environmental Science & Policy, Vol. 39, No. May 20, pp. 95-106. ISSN 1462-9011. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2014.02.009

Wang, X., Lin, X., Ouyang, Y. Y., Liu, J., Zhao, G., Pan, A. and Hu, F. B. (2016) "Red and processed meat consumption and mortality: dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies", Public Health Nutrition, Vol. 19, No. 5, pp. 893-905. ISSN 1368-9800. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1368980015002062

Wohlgenant, M. K. (1984) "Conceptual and Functional Form Issues in Estimating Demand Elasticities for Food", American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Vol. 66, No. 2, pp. 211-215. ISSN 0002-9092. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1241045

Wolk, A. (2017) "Potential health hazards of eating red meat", Journal of Internal Medicine, Vol. 281, No. 2, pp. 106-122. ISSN 0954-6820. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/joim.12543