Abstract
In the past few years Mexico has experienced an increase in the price of tortillas much greater than that of the national consumer price index, the minimum wage, and their basic ingredients (corn and corn flour) that has affected the urban families that buy this basic product in the market. Since the tortilla constitutes a symbolic value for the immense majority of Mexicans, it has remained exposed to the laws of the market, increasingly losing its ritual character of time immemorial. Even when its price has increased, its deep roots in Mexican culture have permitted it to remain a basic product for daily consumption, thus generating strong tensions between its price and its cultural-nutritive role. An analysis of the impact of the increase in the price of tortillas on the consumption of low- and high-income households in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, establishes that tortillas represent a Giffen good—a product for which a price increase, far from diminishing its demand, increases it—for poor urban households. En los últimos años se ha apreciado en México un incremento en el precio de la tortilla muy superior al índice nacional de precios al consumidor, al del salario mínimo y al de sus insumos básicos (maíz en grano y harina de maíz), que ha afectado a las familias residentes en zonas urbanas, las que adquieren este producto básico en el mercado. La tortilla, en tanto que constituye un valor simbólico para la inmensa mayoría de los mexicanos, ha quedado expuesta a las leyes del mercado, perdiendo cada vez más su carácter ritual que tuvo en tiempos immemoriales. Cuando su precio ha tendido al incremento, su arraigo en la cultura mexicana le ha permitido mantenerse como un producto básico de consumo diario, generando así fuertes tensiones entre su precio y su papel cultural-alimenticio. Un análisis del impacto del aumento del precio de la tortilla en el consumo de hogares de ingresos bajo y alto en San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, establece que la tortilla representa un bien Giffen—un producto que ante un aumento de precio, lejos de disminuir su demanda, ésta aumenta—para los hogares pobres urbanos.
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