More Or Better? MeasuringQuality Versus QuantityIn Food Consumption

As people become richer they get the opportunity of consuming more but also qualitativelybetter goods. This holds for a basic commodity like food as well. We investigatefood consumption in Russia, taking into account both expenditure and nutrition value interms of calories. We analyze how food consumption patterns change with increasing incomeby estimating both “quantity Engel curves” and “quality Engel curves.” The formerdescribe the functional dependence of calories consumed on total expenditure. The lattertrace out the dependence of price per calorie as a proxy for quality on total expenditure.We compare income elasticities of quantity with income elasticities of quality.[...]