Calorie Demand in Rural Ethiopia

Abstract

The paper investigated the extent of responsiveness of nutritional status of rural
Ethiopian households to changes in their economic status. Daily calorie per capita
intake and expenditure per capita per day were taken as a proxy for nutritional tatus
and economic status respectively. Using OLS and Local Regres ion Smoother ,
calorie intake elasticity of expenditure was estimated. The 95% Confidence interval
f or the elasticity is 0.222 - 0.254. The estimate indicated that the contemporary
approach (improving food entitlement to solve under nutrition problem) i not an
adequate means of tackling nutritional deficiency in rural Ethiopia since the
responsiveness of calorie intake to change in expenditure is very small.