The Effect of Social Norms and Economic Considerations on Purchases of Chicken

Abstract

An important characteristic of modern life is the increasing diversity of products and services that save time. While, in the past, time-saving services were primarily limited to those who could afford to employ maids or servants, the modern economy has created a whole range of time-saving products and services that are accessible to people of any economic status.

Appendix: Disaggregation of Total Chicken Demand into the Demand for Chicken Types

Table 9.4 shows the decomposition of total chicken demand estimated from (equation 9.1). Although we did not place any restrictions on the parameters, parameters (they are all positive), the coefficient for consuming sometimes is smaller than the coefficient for consuming often, and both are smaller than one as they should be. All of the coefficients are significant at the 10% level except the coefficient for fresh whole cut and fresh parts of chicken. The R-square (0.83) is quite high for this type of estimation.

Table 9.4 Decomposition of total chicken demand into demand for chicken types

People who buy fresh uncut whole chicken have the largest coefficients associated with their purchases, suggesting that, when it is purchased, it is consumed more frequently than other types of chicken. People who buy chicken types sometimes consume about half (0.48) of the amount consumed by those who always buy them while those who buy often consume slightly over half (0.55) of that amount.

The coefficients in Table 9.4 transform the relative measures of purchase (sometimes, often, and always) into estimated weekly consumption of each type of chicken. For example, a respondent whose family is identified as consuming fresh uncut whole chicken always is assigned a consumption of 1.613 times per week for that chicken type while a respondent indicating sometimes in that category is assigned a weekly consumption of fresh whole uncut chicken of 0.77 times per week (=1.613 * 0.48).