Open Collections

Essays on some determinants of food-security and consumption of nutrients in India

University of British Columbia

This thesis is motivated by the unique experience of India regarding economic growth and the corresponding impact on nutritional status. Despite sustained periods of growth, malnutrition levels in India have shown modest improvement. Moreover, average calorie consumption in the country is going down even as consumption expenditure and incomes go up. The objective of this thesis is to shed light on some possible causes of this puzzling phenomenon. The second chapter is a theoretical exploration of the possibility that preference for conspicuous consumption could be a factor contributing to this decline in calorie consumption. This chapter starts by incorporating status seeking preferences in a dual-economy general equilibrium model and then demonstrates that, in such a setting, economic growth could lead to a fall in calorie consumption across the income distribution even with incomes rising at the same time. In Chapter 3 the implications of the main assumption of "keeping up with the Jones" preferences, from the theoretical model of Chapter 2, is tested in the data. This assumption implies that household calorie consumption should decline with peer group income. So the effect of peer group income on calorie consumption is estimated using World Bank data collected from rural India. Using these estimates it is roughly estimated that Veblen competition can account for more than a third of the missing calories. A unique source of variation in peer group income, based on caste-wise domination across villages, is used for identification. The fourth chapter looks at the impact of the public food distribution system (PDS) in India, on the household per capita consumption of calories and proteins. This effect is identified using random shocks introduced into the delivery system of PDS through the impact of rainfall on agricultural output in the state which is the largest supplier of grains to the system. The results suggest that a rise in PDS performance has different effect in different regions in the country. Yet, for those who benefit from this system, the impact on nutrient consumption and malnutrition is significant and large.

Text

2014-10-09

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/50671

Economics

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/