Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/80310 
Year of Publication: 
2007
Series/Report no.: 
CREDIT Research Paper No. 07/03
Publisher: 
The University of Nottingham, Centre for Research in Economic Development and International Trade (CREDIT), Nottingham
Abstract: 
In this paper, we analyse the effect of food price changes on household consumption in Ghana during the 1990s and assess the extent to which changes can be explained by trade and agricultural policy reforms. The measurement of the total household welfare effect, one that jointly considers (static) first order effects as well as (dynamic) consumption responses, is the object of this study. Food consumption behaviour in Ghana is analyzed by estimating a complete food demand system using the linear approximate version of the AIDS model with household survey data for 1991/92 and 1998/99. The estimated price elasticities are then utilized to evaluate the distributional impacts of the relative food price changes in terms of compensating variation. The results indicate that the distributional burden of higher food prices fell mainly on the urban poor. While it is difficult to attribute the price changes and by implication the welfare losses, to any particular policy per se, a simulation analysis indicates that trade liberalisation may not have been responsible for the welfare losses. Our simulation exercise suggests that further tariff liberalisation would tend to offset the welfare losses for all households although it is the poor and rural consumers who stand to gain the most.
Subjects: 
Food prices
Demand analysis
Consumer behaviour
Welfare
Ghan
JEL: 
D12
O12
O55
Q18
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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