An Analysis of Demand Elasticities for Fluid Milk Products in the U.S.

Abstract

This study examines retail fluid milk products purchase data from Nielsen 2005 home scan data. The demand for seven categories of fluid milk products were estimated: whole milk, whole flavored milk, reduced fat milk, flavored reduced fat milk, buttermilk, canned milk and all other fluid milk products. Analyses of the purchases of seven fluid milk categories based on the Nielsen 2005 home scan retail data are used to determine the roles marital status, age, race, education, female employment status and location play in the empirical estimations of aggregate demand elasticities. To derive the demand elasticities, a censored translog demand system is used. The results reveal that price and income are the main determinants of demand for fluid milk products with a few minor determinants. All own-price elasticities are greater than unity for all fluid milk categories except for the compensated reduced fat milk. All expenditure elasticities are inelastic except for reduced fat milk and most of the fluid milk categories are substitutes.