Household size and food consumption spending in cameroon. is there evidence of economies of size?

Dickson Thomas Ndamsa (), Delphine Murkwi Gur () and Francis Menjo Baye ()
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Dickson Thomas Ndamsa: University of Bamenda
Delphine Murkwi Gur: University of Bamenda
Francis Menjo Baye: University of Bamenda

SN Business & Economics, 2023, vol. 3, issue 8, 1-24

Abstract: Abstract This paper investigates the effects of household size on food consumption spending in Cameroon. This paper extracts secondary data from the Cameroon household consumption survey conducted in 2014 by the government’s statistics office. The residual inclusion version of the two-stage least squares method is used to investigate the effect of household size on household consumption spending. We find that non-self-cluster fertility, non-self-cluster mortality and cluster-level household size are relevant instrumental variables for household size. We also find evidence of a U-shaped relationship between household size and food expenditure. Specifically, with household size below 7 members, any additional member decreases consumption spending, but above this threshold, any additional member increases consumption spending per adult equivalent. These findings present evidence of economies of scale in food consumption spending. Other variables that correlate positively with consumption spending include access to credit, urban residency, primary education, secondary education and tertiary education. Meanwhile, general price level correlates negatively with household food spending. These results have policy implications for the optimal household size in predominantly agricultural/rural settings.

Keywords: Household size; Food consumption spending; Economies of size; Two-stage least squares; Cameroon (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D11 D6 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1007/s43546-023-00521-5

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