We conducted a meta‐analysis of food and agricultural demand elasticities for China, and used the results to derive estimates of income, own‐price, and cross‐price elasticities of demand that can be used in models of food and agricultural markets. Consistent with expectations, we find that income elasticities of demand for many food products decline as per capita income increases. The declines are relatively large for alcohol and tobacco, and smaller for livestock products. Contrary to expectations, own‐price elasticities for some products become more price‐elastic as per capita income increases. One explanation may be that economic development brings with it improvements in food supply chains that provide people more choices with respect to food products than those traditionally consumed in rural villages, leading to greater substitution possibilities and more price‐elastic demands. Estimates for 2011 of income and own‐price demand elasticities are generally reasonable, whereas deriving reliable estimates of cross‐price elasticities is difficult. The estimates suggest that China's meat and dairy demands, and in turn livestock feed demands, will continue growing strongly. Policy‐makers should continue to monitor the evolution of demand for these products with an eye toward ensuring food security, particularly given the sheer size of the population and relatively tight domestic food supply situation in China.

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in Dynamic Food Demand in Urban ChinaAbstract:Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to investigate dynamic food demand in urban China, with use of a complete dynamic demand system -DLES-LA/DAIDS, which pushes forward the techniques of demand analysis.Design/methodology/approach -We employ a transitionary demand process and develop a new approach of complete demand system with a two-stage dynamic budgeting: an additively separable dynamic linear expenditure system (DLES) in the first stage and a linear approximate dynamic almost ideal demand system (LA/DAIDS). Employing provincial aggregate data (1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010) from the China urban household surveys (UHS), we estimated the demand elasticities for primary food products in urban China.Findings -Our results indicate that most primary food products are necessities and price-inelastic for urban households in China. We also found that the dynamic model tends to yield relatively smaller expenditure elasticities in magnitude than the static models do due to dynamic adjusting costs, such as habit formation, switching costs, and learning process. .Practical implications -The research contributes to the demand analysis methodologically, and can be used for better projections in policy simulation models.Originality/value -This paper methodologically releases the restrictive assumption of instant adjustment in static models and allows consumers to make a dynamic decision in food consumption. Empirically, we introduce a new complete dynamic demand model and carry out a case study with the use of urban household data in China.

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