Heat or Eat?: An empirical analysis of U.K. cold weather income support

Timothy K.M. Beatty, Laura Blow and Thomas Crossley

No 51903, 2009 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, 2009, Milwaukee, Wisconsin from Agricultural and Applied Economics Association

Abstract: We investigate whether households trade off spending on food and spending on heating. We use a large sample of households from the United Kingdom and Norther Ireland over the period 1974-2007. We find evidence that low-income households reduce food expenditure during periods of colder than average weather. In contrast, wealthier households increase spending on food during colder than average weather. Further we investigate the efficacy of the Winter Fuel Payment, a social program designed to mitigate the effects of energy costs.

Keywords: Deprivation; Food Expenditure; Heat or Eat; Consumer/Household Economics; Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety; Food Security and Poverty; D12; Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-ene
Date: 2009
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aaea09:51903

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