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On food security and the economic valuation of food

Author

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  • Chavas, Jean-Paul
Abstract
The paper presents an economic evaluation of food and the cost of food insecurity. Building on behavioral regularities of consumer behavior, the analysis estimates the benefit of food at the individual level and at the world level. It finds an inverted-U relationship between food benefit and income. At the individual level, the “food benefit/income” ratio starts at 0 under extreme poverty, increases with income to reach a maximum of 4.4 when income per capita is around $13,000, and then declines slowly as income rises. The paper shows very large aggregate net benefit of food. The analysis also evaluates the cost of food insecurity. It shows that aversion to food insecurity is pervasive, the coefficient of relative risk aversion to food insecurity being around 2.7. The analysis evaluates empirically the cost of food insecurity. We report the cost of food insecurity under alternative scenarios, documenting that it can be large in situations of exposure to significant downside risk.

Suggested Citation

  • Chavas, Jean-Paul, 2017. "On food security and the economic valuation of food," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 58-67.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfpoli:v:69:y:2017:i:c:p:58-67
    DOI: 10.1016/j.foodpol.2017.03.008
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    Cited by:

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    2. Bojan Matkovski & Danilo Đokić & Stanislav Zekić & Žana Jurjević, 2020. "Determining Food Security in Crisis Conditions: A Comparative Analysis of the Western Balkans and the EU," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-16, November.
    3. Agnieszka Baer-Nawrocka & Arkadiusz Sadowski, 2019. "Food security and food self-sufficiency around the world: A typology of countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(3), pages 1-15, March.
    4. Bilgili, Faik & Koçak, Emrah & Kuşkaya, Sevda & Bulut, Ümit, 2020. "Estimation of the co-movements between biofuel production and food prices: A wavelet-based analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 213(C).
    5. Jacková, Silvia & Kapsdorferová, Zuzana & Dobošová, Ľudmila & Kadlečíková, Mária, 2017. "Food Security and Self-Sufficiency in Europe," Problems of World Agriculture / Problemy Rolnictwa Światowego, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, vol. 17(32, Part ), December.
    6. Baidalinova, Ainur & Suleimanov, Rustam & Stukach, Victor, 2020. "Развитие Аграрного Сектора - Фактор Обеспечения Продовольственной Безопасности Казахстана В Условиях Еаэс [The development of the potential of the agar economy is a factor of food security of Kazak," MPRA Paper 114134, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 06 Jul 2022.
    7. Jian Li & Wuyang Hu & Ping Qing & Jean‐Paul Chavas, 2024. "On household food stock and waste under risk," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 72(1), pages 23-44, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Food security; Value of food; Benefit; Risk;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q11 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Aggregate Supply and Demand Analysis; Prices
    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis

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