The Transformation of Hunger: The Demand for Calories Past and Present

Trevon Logan

No 11754, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: According to conventional income measures, nineteenth century American and British industrial workers were two to four times as wealthy as poor people in developing countries today. Surprisingly, however, today's poor are less hungry than yesterday's wealthy industrial workers. I estimate the demand for calories of American and British industrial workers using the 1888 Cost of Living Survey and find that the estimated calorie elasticities for both American and British households are greater than calorie elasticity estimates for households in present day developing countries. The results are robust to measurement error, unreported food consumption, and indirect estimation bias. This finding implies substantial nutritional improvements among the poor in the twentieth century. Using the Engel curve implied by the historical calorie elasticities, I derive new income estimates for developing countries which yield income estimates that are six to ten times greater than those derived using purchasing power parity or GDP deflators.

JEL-codes: D12 I12 I31 J10 N31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
Note: DAE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Published as Logan, Trevon D. "The Transformation of Hunger: The Demand for Calories Past and Present." The Journal of Economic History 69, 2 (2009): 388-408.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11754.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Transformation of Hunger: The Demand for Calories Past and Present (2009)
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:nbr:nberwo:11754

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11754

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().