FOOD DEMAND STUDIES IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA - A SURVEY OF EMPIRICAL-EVIDENCE

The recent empirical food demand studies on Sub-Saharan Africa show si gnificant advances in demand specification and methodology, especially in the application of less restrictive and theoretically consistent f lexible functional forms, The findings to date establish some broad pa tterns on effect of income, household demography and life cycle, locat ion, and prices on food demand patterns, However, the numerical values of the demand estimates are less generalizable because of an insuffic ient number of data points to separate the true demand component from other confounding factors, which are linked to differences in modeling and estimation of demand relations, The priority for future research is to generate sufficiently detailed demand estimates that have a high utility for disaggregated policy analysis, but are based on a theoret ically consistent and comparable methodology. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsev ier Science Ltd