Demanda domiciliar por frutas e hortaliças no Brasil

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Maria Micheliana da Costa
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: LOCUS Repositório Institucional da UFV
• Texto Completo: http://locus.ufv.br/handle/123456789/80
• topic: Teoria do consumidor; Demanda; Modelo QUAIDS; Subsídios; Consumer theory; Demand; Model Quaids; Subsidies; CNPQ::CIENCIAS SOCIAIS APLICADAS::ECONOMIA::ECONOMIA DO BEM-ESTAR SOCIAL

Given low consumption of healthy foods by Brazilians, it is necessary to verify which factors influence the demand for fruits and vegetables by Brazilian households. Analysis of demand for specific foods, especially those considered healthier, it is important to know what influences their consumption and develop strategies to improve it, which in turn may contribute to reducing the incidence of diseases related to poor nutrition and its socioeconomic inefficiencies. This study analyzed, at disaggregated level, the demand for fruits and vegetables in Brazilian households, based on microdata from the POF / IBGE in 2008/2009. Specifically, we analyzed the sensitivity of consumption of fruits and vegetables in relation to expenditure and prices, as well as the influence of family composition variables and life habits. Furthermore, we compared the level of consumption and sensitivity, by level of household income, and were evaluated the effects of subsidies on the consumption of fruits and vegetables in order to understand the impact of such policies on stimulating healthy eating habits. Thus, we estimated a disaggregated demand system to fruits and vegetables through the QUAIDS model with correction when the expenditure is zero, based on Shonkwiller and Yen's procedure. Besides this econometric problem, were also corrected the endogeneity of prices and expenditure, in order to obtain more precise estimates. In the first stage, could verify what factors contribute to the decision to purchase a particular good or not. We highlight the effects of the educational level of the decision maker of the household, in addition to variables that express the location home. The variables that express the habits of life were important in explaining the decision to purchase, especially in richer households. In the second stage, we obtained expenditure elasticities, price elasticities and cross elasticities for each good, which allowed us to analyze the behavior of households facing changes in economic variables in relation to the demand for healthy foods. The results showed different degrees of sensitivity between classes and between products, particularly in relation to the price of products. At respect with total expenditure at the goods considered, the sensitivity of demand for fruits is decreasing with the level of income, while it is increasing in relation to the demand for vegetables. Therefore, the hypothesis that poor households are more sensitive to changes in the level of expenditure is rebutted only to the demand for vegetables. Regarding the price of goods, there is a predominance of goods with elastic demand in all income classes. Unlike what happens with the results for the total expenditure, the behavior with respect to the price of each good is similar between the lower and middle class, especially for fruit. We also confirm that the demand for healthy products depends on household composition and location. Besides these features, the demand for fruits and vegetables is related to variables expressing habits and awareness about health. So, was possible to draw a more detailed profile of their consumption. Understanding the effect of these variables, together with the educational level of the decision maker of the household, may be important in developing informative and preventive policies. Besides these questions, we sought to investigate the effects of a change policy in prices of fruits and vegetables analyzed on the total quantity demanded. The application of a thin subsidy of 5% was able to increase of 8% the amount consumed in poor households. Households in the middle class benefited from an increase of 8.5%. Already in households with higher income, the total consumption increases by 10%. Overall, we can consider that, if the goal is to reduce disparities between consumer classes, the percentage of reduction in prices should be differentiated between classes. This is because, for the average consumption of the intermediate class individuals reach the recommended amount, a 5% reduction in prices would be effective. However, for this to be achieved by individuals with lower income, on average, the reduction should be equivalent to 55%. As in some products the subsidy is ineffective, but the variables that express the awareness and educational level influences their consumption, it would be interesting that shares informative about the beneficial effects of these foods are applied together with the subsidies.