Demand for Meat; Seprability and Structural changes (A Nonparametric Analysis)

This study provides information on the structure of the consumer demand for meat group (1950-51 to 2004-2005) in Pakistan. Nonparametric tests were used on the data set to check the consistency of the data with the theory of revealed preferences, e.g. the Afriat inequalities, GARP and the condition of weak separability. We started with 26 different consumer commodities and employed nonparametric tests to the different groups of commodities. But all other groups except meat group showed violations of generalized axiom of revealed preferences (GARP). So we limited our analysis only to meat group. It was found that there was no violation of GARP in our data set and hence consistent with Afriat inequalities. The data set also met the condition of weak separability. These test procedures imply that the data could have been generated by stable preferences. Furthermore, the existence and the nature of the structural change is checked by using GARP. Tests of structural change do support a shift in demand for fish in 1991-92.