The association between food outlet accessibility and market competition to household food expenditures: Empirical evidence from the convenience store industry in Taiwan

Abstract

AbstractMany studies document the importance of food outlet accessibility on household food expenditures. However, the role of market competition between commercial food outlets garners little attention in these studies. This paper provides the first evidence distinguishing between the association between food outlet accessibility and market competition among commercial food outlets on household food expenditures. Using administrative profiles on convenience stores and nationally representative repeated cross‐sectional household surveys from 2003 to 2016, we find that inter‐brand competition between convenience store chain brands is associated with total food, food at home, and food away from home expenditures in Taiwan. In contrast, food outlet accessibility has no significant correlation with household food expenditures after controlling for inter‐brand competition. [EconLit citations: Q13, L22].