Citation

Discussion Paper Details

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Title: Shopping around? How households adjusted food spending over the Great Recession

Author(s): Rachel Griffith, Martin O'Connell and Kate Smith

Publication Date: August 2014

Keyword(s): nutrition, opportunity cost of time and shopping behaviour

Programme Area(s): Industrial Organization

Abstract: Over the Great Recession real wages stagnated and unemployment increased. Concurrently, food prices rose sharply, outstripping growth in food expenditure, and leading to a reduction in calories purchased. This has led to concern about rising food poverty. We study British households to assess how they adjusted to changes in the economic environment. We show they switched to cheaper calories; implying food consumption was smoother than expenditure. We use longitudinal data to quantify the way households lowered their per calorie spending, and show they done this in part by increasing shopping effort, and without lowering the nutritional quality of their groceries.

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Bibliographic Reference

Griffith, R, O'Connell, M and Smith, K. 2014. 'Shopping around? How households adjusted food spending over the Great Recession'. London, Centre for Economic Policy Research. https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=10096