Estimating nutrition-income elasticities in sub-Saharan Africa: implications on health
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how the intakes of calories, proteins, and fats vary with income in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).
Design/methodology/approach
Annual time series data for 43 countries covering 1975-2009 that yields a balanced panel was employed for analysis. Nutrient-income elasticities are estimated based on the aggregate Engel Curve framework, using a feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) technique that is robust to autocorrelation.
Findings
The estimated nutrient-income elasticities are small: a 10 percent increase in income will lead, respectively, to rises of about 0.73, 0.87, and 0.90 percent in calories, proteins, and fats intake; showing that policies that are aimed at eliminating malnutrition through only the growth of per capita income will have positive but limited impacts. The estimated aggregate Engel Curve and the non-parametric plots show that at higher income levels the relationship between income and nutrient intake is non-linear and diminished, suggesting a low likelihood for the manifestation of an obesity epidemic in SSA.
Originality/value
This is the very study that attempts to look at the nutrition-income elasticities at cross-country level in SSA.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
JEL Classification — C33, I31, O47, O55
The first author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the JSPS toward his postdoctoral fellowship at the Kyushu University, Fukuoka and also for providing Grants-Aid-for-Scientific Research-KAKENHI with ID No. 24-02406 for the research between 2012/2014. Equally, the authors thank the anonymous reviewers of this paper for their insightful comments and suggestions on the earlier draft of the paper.
Citation
Ogundari, K., Ito, S. and Okoruwa, V.O. (2016), "Estimating nutrition-income elasticities in sub-Saharan Africa: implications on health", Journal of Economic Studies, Vol. 43 No. 1, pp. 59-69. https://doi.org/10.1108/JES-07-2014-0125
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited