Food demand in rural China: evidence from rural household survey

Shenggen Fan, Gail Cramer and Eric Wailes

Agricultural Economics, 1994, vol. 11, issue 1, 61-69

Abstract: The recent rural reforms in China have had great effects on agricultural production and productivity as well as rural household consumption. While much has been written on production and productivity effects of these reforms, very few Chinese studies have attempted to analyze the changes in rural consumption patterns. This paper uses a dynamic AIDS model to estimate various food demand parameters for Chinese rural households using rural household survey data recently released by the China State Statistical Bureau. The results show that all important food commodities including rice, wheat, coarse grains, vegetables, meat, tobacco and alcohol have positive expenditure elasticities. Rice, wheat and coarse grains are necessities, while meat, vegetables, alcohol and tobacco are luxuries. The expenditure elasticities for rice, coarse grains and tobacco are declining, but those for wheat, meat, vegetables and alcohol are increasing. As per capita income rises and population increases, the demand for these items will continue to increase. Therefore, China must continue to increase its food production by a greater rate in the future in order to avoid food shortages.

Date: 1994
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (43)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1574-0862.1994.tb00319.x

Related works:
Journal Article: Food demand in rural China: evidence from rural household survey (1994)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:agecon:v:11:y:1994:i:1:p:61-69

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0169-5150

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Economics is currently edited by W.A. Masters and G.E. Shively

More articles in Agricultural Economics from International Association of Agricultural Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().