“Empty Plates”: Impacts of Food Prices, Inequality and Trade on Malnutrition

Abstract

This paper studies the complex link between nutritional status and income by using panel data from 150 countries over the period 1960–2018 and employing a panel VAR approach under system GMM estimates. The causal link between nutrition intake and income may change from one income group to another due to different effects of similar factors. While hikes in food prices, unfair distributions of income and rising international trade flows lower nutrition intake in lower middle-income countries, the same factors lead to higher body weights in upper middle-income and high-income OECD countries. Therefore, Engel Curve and Efficiency Wage Hypotheses fail for a group of countries.

Keywords

• Malnutrition
• income inequality
• food prices
• panel data