Food demand in Slovenia

This paper attempts to contribute to a better understanding of changes occu rring in food demand during the transitional period that the whole Slovene society has been experiencing. The Linear Approximation of Almost Ideal Dem and System (LA/AIDS) model was estimated for seven different food groups us ing Household Budget Survey data for 1988 and 1993, respectively. The compu ted food expenditure elasticities range between 0.7 and 1.4. The most price elastic food groups were found to be fruits and meats, followed by milk an d vegetables. An increase in food elasticities may be interpreted as the re sult of an increase in price responsiveness of the average food consumer an d there are indications of a decline in the welfare of low-income household s during transition. These estimates may be used for policy purposes, espec ially to simulate the implications of adopting the Common Agricultural Poli cy on Slovene consumers.