 Caloric consumption efficiency and import dependency: Evidence from Sri LankaAsanka Wijesinghe and Thilani Kaushalya Economic Analysis and Policy, 2022, vol. 76, issue C, 420-438 Abstract: Using the stochastic cost frontier, we estimated the determinants of cost inefficiency of total caloric and cereal and pulses-based caloric consumption in Sri Lanka at the household level. We specifically tested whether high reliance on imported food helps poor, food- poor, and urban households to be cost-efficient. We estimated the cost frontiers employing half normal and truncated normal distribution assumptions. We found that truncated normal specifications are more appropriate. Our results show that food-poor households with higher reliance on imported calories are more cost-efficient in total and cereal and pulses-based caloric consumption. Urban households with a high import dependency on cereal and pulses-based consumption are found to be more cost-efficient. Our results call for prudent trade policies that do not deprive food-poor and urban households of imported food as the policy biases favouring domestic food production will disproportionately affect the food-poor and urban households. Keywords: Caloric consumption efficiency; Import dependency; Stochastic cost frontier (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:76:y:2022:i:c:p:420-438 DOI: 10.1016/j.eap.2022.08.017 Access Statistics for this article Economic Analysis and Policy is currently edited by Clevo Wilson More articles in Economic Analysis and Policy from Elsevier |
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