Long-term trends in food consumption: a multi-country study

Demand analysis has a classic application to agricultural statistics. Empirical findings, however, obtained from different countries often show great discrepancies. This multi-country study suggests that such discrepancies in many cases are due not only to the application of different statistical methods, to differences in respect of geographical position, consumption habits, etc., but are the result of the structural disparity in the general economic situation, country by country. Accordingly special attention has been paid to the influence on the average demand elasticities caused by varying income level.