Downloads
wp0503.pdf
PDF | 366.14 KB
<p><p>We show that as household size increases, households substitute away from prepared foods and towards ingredients. They also devote more time to food preparation. These observations (1) are consistent with a simple model with home production, returns to scale in the time input to food preparation, and varieties of food that differ in the required time input; (2) support the idea that returns to scale in home production are an important source of returns to scale in consumption; and (3), mean that across household sizes, household market expenditures on food are not proportional to food consumption quantities. The latter may provide a partial explanation for a puzzle raised by Deaton and Paxson.</p></p>
Authors
Research Fellow University of Michigan
Tom is a Research Fellow at IFS, a Research Professor for the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.
Yuqian Lu
Working Paper details
- DOI
- 10.1920/wp.ifs.2005.0503
- Publisher
- IFS
Suggested citation
Crossley, T and Lu, Y. (2005). Exploring the returns to scale in food preparation (baking penny buns at home). London: IFS. Available at: https://ifs.org.uk/publications/exploring-returns-scale-food-preparation-baking-penny-buns-home (accessed: 30 June 2024).
More from IFS
Understand this issue
Sure Start achieved its aims, then we threw it away
15 April 2024
Social mobility and wealth
12 December 2023
How important is the Bank of Mum and Dad?
15 December 2023
Policy analysis
How do the last five years measure up on levelling up?
19 June 2024
Making mortgage guarantees permanent will help some first-time buyers, but only if they can afford a bigger mortgage
6 June 2024
What has happened to earnings since 2019?
31 May 2024
Academic research
Income inequality in Ireland, 1987–2019
28 June 2024
Components of the evolution of income inequality in Sweden, 1990–2021
28 June 2024
Labour market inequality and the changing life cycle profile of male and female wages
15 April 2024