Exploring the Returns-to-Scale in Food Preparation

Thomas Crossley () and Yuqian Lu

Department of Economics Working Papers from McMaster University

Abstract: We show that as household size increases, households substitute away from prepared foods and towards ingredients. They also devote more time to food preparation. These observations (1) are consistent with a simple model with home production, returns to scale in the time input to food preparation, and varieties of food that differ in the required time input; (2) support the idea that returns to scale in home production are an important source of returns to scale in consumption; and (3), mean that across household sizes, household market expenditures on food are not proportional to food consumption quantities. The latter may provide a partial explanation for a puzzle raised by Deaton and Paxson.

JEL-codes: D11 D12 D13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2004-06
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mcm:deptwp:2004-06

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