Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/242913 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
IFS Working Paper No. W21/14
Publisher: 
Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), London
Abstract: 
The share of home-cooked food in the diet of UK households declined from the 1980s. This was contemporaneous with a decline in the market price of ingredients for home cooking relative to ready-to-eat foods. We consider a simple model of food consumption and time use which captures the key driving forces behind these apparently conflicting trends. We show that observed behaviour can be rationalised by the fact that the shadow price of home-cooked food, which accounts for the fact that cooking takes time, has risen relative to the price of ready-to-eat food, due to the increase in the market value of time of secondary earners. We discuss the implications for policies that aim to encourage healthier diets.
Subjects: 
food consumption
time use
home production
shadow prices
JEL: 
D12
D13
I12
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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