Journal Article
Returns to scale in food preparation and the Deaton–Paxson puzzle
Publication details
Summary
We consider returns to scale in food preparation as a potential resolution of a puzzle raised by Deaton and Paxson (Journal of Political Economy, 106(5), 897–930, 1998). We clarify the conditions under which returns to scale in food preparation can resolve the puzzle. The key requirement is that foods are heterogeneous in time costs. We then show that detailed food expenditure and time use data are consistent with larger households shifting to more time intensive foods.
Notes
© The Author(s) 2017
Open Access
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.