TY - JOUR

T1 - Consumer expenditure, elasticity and value of food waste: A Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System for evaluating changes in Mexico during COVID-19

AU - Vargas Lopez, Adrian

AU - Cicatiello, Clara

AU - Principato, Ludovica

AU - Secondi, Luca

N1 - Funding Information: The authors wish to thank the academic personnel at the State Universities who supported us in distributing the survey among their students and personal acquaintances. They are more than 30 academic researchers from several fields at these universities; we are deeply grateful that they accepted our invitation and helped us increase our sample size. A special thanks to Manuel Garcia Martinez for assisting us in distributing the survey on social networks.

PY - 2022/8

Y1 - 2022/8

N2 - Household food waste is driven by consumer habits and behaviors. The necessary measures implemented during the lockdown worldwide to contain the Covid-19 pandemic altered these consumer practices. This paper examines how household's culinary traditions and food management have changed in Mexico as a result of Covid-related restrictions, and their impact on food waste. We obtained 525 answers using an online survey about food habits distributed through social networks in Mexico between December 2020 and January 2021. The results show that the participating households increased their monetary expenditure on groceries and reduced food waste during the pandemic. The estimation of consumer responsiveness to waste, through the introduction of a framework based on a Quadratic Almost-Ideal Demand System, confirms that, even more during the lockdown, food waste has become a luxury good. The analysis of food category changes allows for a detailed study useful to curtail the level of food waste in Mexican households and to encourage transition towards sustainable and circular consumption behaviors.

AB - Household food waste is driven by consumer habits and behaviors. The necessary measures implemented during the lockdown worldwide to contain the Covid-19 pandemic altered these consumer practices. This paper examines how household's culinary traditions and food management have changed in Mexico as a result of Covid-related restrictions, and their impact on food waste. We obtained 525 answers using an online survey about food habits distributed through social networks in Mexico between December 2020 and January 2021. The results show that the participating households increased their monetary expenditure on groceries and reduced food waste during the pandemic. The estimation of consumer responsiveness to waste, through the introduction of a framework based on a Quadratic Almost-Ideal Demand System, confirms that, even more during the lockdown, food waste has become a luxury good. The analysis of food category changes allows for a detailed study useful to curtail the level of food waste in Mexican households and to encourage transition towards sustainable and circular consumption behaviors.

KW - Household food waste

KW - Covid-19 lockdown

KW - Expenditure elasticity

KW - Consumer responsiveness

KW - QUAIDS

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85104141083&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.seps.2021.101065

DO - 10.1016/j.seps.2021.101065

M3 - Article

VL - 82

JO - Socio-Economic Planning Sciences

JF - Socio-Economic Planning Sciences

SN - 0038-0121

IS - Part A

M1 - 101065

ER -