Estimation of Engel curves for household expenditure on dry bean and processed bean in Mexico

Antonio Aguilar-Lopez,Aleš Kuhar,Salvador González-Andrade

doi:10.14720/aas.2020.115.2.1415

Abstract

Dry bean is the leading source of low-cost plant-based proteins in Mexico. However, in the years following the liberalization of the economy, Mexico experienced the erosion of a self-sufficiency index for this commodity. Impending changes in the international markets for proteins compel us to reevaluate the role of dry bean for Mexico’s food security. In the present paper we set out to analyze the last link of the marketing chain in Mexico’s dry bean market: the consumer. Using data on household expenditure for 2018, the relationship between income and expenditure on dry bean as well as on processed bean is ascertained by means of the Working-Leser Engel Curve equations system. Due to the presence of zero-expenditure households in the sample, we followed the two-step Heckit procedure for the possible selection bias. The results suggest that the budget share for dry bean and for processed bean drops as income increases. The corrected conditional elasticity for dry bean is −0.1056. For processed bean, the elasticity is −0.2286. The negative sign indicates that both commodities are inferior goods.

Highlights

Dry bean is the leading source of low-cost plant-based proteins in Mexico
The results obtained show that the coefficient associated with the IMR is significant only for dry bean, which indicates that the correlation between the error term of the decision to purchase this commodity and the budget share of the same is different than zero
The use of the Heckit procedure is appropriate in the case of dry bean; household expenditure on this commodity can be represented as a two-stage process

Summary

Introduction

Dry bean is the leading source of low-cost plant-based proteins in Mexico. Z uporabo podatkov o izdatkih gospodinjstev za leto 2018 smo razmerje med dohodkom in odhodki za suh in predelan fižol ugotavljali z uporabo Working-Leser-jevega sistema Engelovih krivulj. A notion echoed in several academic and institutional settings around the world suggests that plant-based proteins should account for a larger share of the human intake of these nutrients, replacing animal-based sources to some extent. This partial replacement is seen as an economic and environmental necessity, feasible in nutritional terms, and strategically unavoidable for the achievement of food security goals at the national and international levels. Average meat consumption stagnates and even declines as income increases (Vranken et al, 2014), different strategies have been suggested to adapt human diets to meet sustainability challenges (De Boer et al, 2014), one among them being the substitution of animalbased proteins for plant-based proteins (Westhoek et al, 2014)

Methods

Results

Conclusion