The Nutrient-Income Elasticity in Ultra-Poor Households: Evidence from Kenya
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The Nutrient‑Income Elasticity in Ultra‑Poor Households: Evidence from Kenya Hamidou Jawara1 · Rainer Thiele2 Accepted: 7 October 2020 © European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) 2020
Abstract The relationship between nutrient intake and wealth of poor households continues to be an issue of huge policy relevance. In this paper, we contribute to the ongoing debate on the nutrient-income elasticity using a sample of ultra-poor households with orphans and vulnerable children in Kenya. To estimate the nutrient-income elasticity for these households, we employ panel data techniques that enable us to tackle measurement error and simultaneity bias. In addition, we use semi-parametric panel data models to address nonlinearities. For most of the nutrients considered, we find that income elasticities are significantly different from zero but below unity. Caloric intakes turn out to be less income-inelastic than macro- and micro-nutrient intakes. Keywords Nutrient-income elasticity · OVC households · Kenya Résumé Le lien entre l’apport en nutriments et la richesse des ménages pauvres continue d’être une question d’une importance politique considérable. Dans cet article, nous contribuons au débat en cours au sujet de l’élasticité nutrition-revenus en utilisant un échantillon de ménages très pauvres avec des orphelins et des enfants vulnérables (OEV) au Kenya. Pour estimer l’élasticité nutrition-revenus de ces ménages, nous utilisons des techniques de données de panel qui nous permettent d’éviter l’erreur de mesure et le biais d’endogénéité. En outre, nous utilisons des modèles semi-paramétriques de données de panel pour traiter la non-linéarité. Pour la plupart des nutriments pris en compte, nous constatons que l’élasticité-revenus est significativement
* Rainer Thiele rainer.thiele@ifw‑kiel.de Hamidou Jawara [email protected] 1
School of Business and Public Administration, University of the Gambia, Banjul, Gambia
2
Poverty Reduction, Equity, and Development, Kiel Institute for the World Economy, University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany
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H. Jawara, R. Thiele
différente de zéro mais inférieure à l’unité. Les apports caloriques s’avèrent moins inélastiques au revenu que les apports en macro et en micronutriments.
Introduction Motivated by the assertion that hunger and poverty tend to be synonymous (Banerjee and Duflo 2011), i.e. the prevalence of hunger and malnutrition is associated with poor economic status, a significant amount of mostly empirical literature on the relationship between nutritional status and income or total expenditure has emerged over the last decades (Ogundari and Abdulai, 2013). Theoretically, two explanations can be given on why nutrition might be related to income or expenditure. The first is the efficiency-wage hypothesis (Leibenstein 1957; Stiglitz 1976), according to which employers reward labor based on productivity and the latter is determined by nutritional status. Thus, unemployment, and therefore, poverty exists because some people do
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