Food prices in remote areas of Scotland: A natural experiment measuring the out-shopping effect

Carlo Russo and Cesar Revoredo-Giha

No 355321, Agricultural Economics Society (AES) 98th Annual Conference, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK, March 18-20, 2024 from Agricultural Economics Society (AES)

Abstract: An important aspect of the survival of remote rural areas in a country is whether the food prices that their citizens face are similar to those elsewhere. There is a conflictive literature about existence and magnitude of a “remoteness premium” (i.e., whether households in remote areas pay more for food than the average prices paid in the country). This paper investigates the effect of out-shopping on food expensiveness in remote rural areas in Scotland. For this purpose, a natural experiment was used. An expensiveness index was constructed using home scanner data. Food expensiveness was compared during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, when travel restriction prevented out-shopping, with the data from the same period in 2019. It was assumed that the difference – after controlling for the change in the purchased bundle of goods – may be attributed to the lockdown effect, preventing out-shopping. The results find that the premium paid in remote rural areas was small and out-shopping is an important factor limiting food expensiveness in remote areas of Scotland.

Keywords: Consumer/Household Economics; Food Security and Poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 15
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:aes024:355321

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.355321

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