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Essays on Food Security and the Nutrition Transition in Developing Countries

dc.contributor.advisorKlasen, Stephan Prof. Dr.
dc.contributor.authorRischke, Ramona
dc.date.accessioned2014-12-19T10:26:57Z
dc.date.available2014-12-19T10:26:57Z
dc.date.issued2014-12-19
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-1735-0000-0023-9973-7
dc.identifier.urihttp://dx.doi.org/10.53846/goediss-4844
dc.description.abstractThe nature of food insecurity has been changing in the world. While research on food insecurity in developing countries used to focus on undernourishment (i.e. lack of calorie consumption) and related outcomes, today, many developing countries face at least a “double burden of malnutrition” with persistently high rates of undernourishment and increasing rates of overweight, obesity and related non-communicable diseases (NCDs). An important driver of overweight and obesity in developing countries is the „nutrition transition“, i.e. the trend towards the consumption of more energy-dense, highly processed foods and more sedentary lifestyles. Two essays of this Ph.D. thesis analyse drivers and consequences of the nutrition transition in developing countries with a particular focus on the role of supermarkets, which have been rapidly spreading in many countries. We provide evidence that the presence of supermarkets causally affects dietary choices and nutritional outcomes. Data collection for this research was carried out in small Kenyan towns of the kind that accommodate most of the country’s urban population. We designed our sample to be quasi-experimental in nature and employ instrumental variable techniques to allow for endogeneity of supermarket purchases. Kenya’s supermarket landscape is dynamic and so far, it has followed the ‘traditional pattern’ of the so-called supermarket revolution. Supermarket purchases are found to contribute to the nutrition transition by shifting consumption towards processed and away from unprocessed foods. At the same time, calorie availability increases as calories are sourced at lower prices in supermarkets. We find that supermarket purchases increase adult Body Mass Index and their probability of being overweight or obese. Yet, we also find that buying in a supermarket tends to decrease underweight among children and adolescents (age 5-19) in terms of stunting (height-for-age). In a third essay, we use secondary household survey data from Malawi to analyse ‘one of the other faces of malnutrition’. The world food price crisis of 2007/08 and other global and regional price and income shocks that followed have spurred interest in producing timely predictions on their implications for food security. A critical research gap remains with comparing simulation outcomes across studies that use different, established methods on the same subject. This is to establish if and to which extent they might result in different and potentially conflicting policy recommendations. We address this gap building on three simulation studies set in Malawi, which analyse welfare in terms of food security and income effects using the same 2004/05 household survey data but resort to methodologies of different complexity. We harmonize simulation scenarios across methods and systematically modify relevant parameters for our comparative assessment. We find differences between methods to depend on the scenario under consideration and to grow with increasing rates of simulated price changes. The differences we find are driven by differences in conceptualising price changes. In case of Malawi, for a reasonable set of observed price changes, mean outcomes on district levels are fairly robust to underlying methodologies. We illustrate that is it important to improve our understanding of how changes in the underlying methodologies change results and to analyse the sensitivity of simulation outcomes to different model assumptions.de
dc.language.isoengde
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
dc.subject.ddc330de
dc.titleEssays on Food Security and the Nutrition Transition in Developing Countriesde
dc.typedoctoralThesisde
dc.contributor.refereeKlasen, Stephan Prof. Dr.
dc.date.examination2014-11-27
dc.description.abstractengThe nature of food insecurity has been changing in the world. While research on food insecurity in developing countries used to focus on undernourishment (i.e. lack of calorie consumption) and related outcomes, today, many developing countries face at least a “double burden of malnutrition” with persistently high rates of undernourishment and increasing rates of overweight, obesity and related non-communicable diseases (NCDs). An important driver of overweight and obesity in developing countries is the „nutrition transition“, i.e. the trend towards the consumption of more energy-dense, highly processed foods and more sedentary lifestyles. Two essays of this Ph.D. thesis analyse drivers and consequences of the nutrition transition in developing countries with a particular focus on the role of supermarkets, which have been rapidly spreading in many countries. We provide evidence that the presence of supermarkets causally affects dietary choices and nutritional outcomes. Data collection for this research was carried out in small Kenyan towns of the kind that accommodate most of the country’s urban population. We designed our sample to be quasi-experimental in nature and employ instrumental variable techniques to allow for endogeneity of supermarket purchases. Kenya’s supermarket landscape is dynamic and so far, it has followed the ‘traditional pattern’ of the so-called supermarket revolution. Supermarket purchases are found to contribute to the nutrition transition by shifting consumption towards processed and away from unprocessed foods. At the same time, calorie availability increases as calories are sourced at lower prices in supermarkets. We find that supermarket purchases increase adult Body Mass Index and their probability of being overweight or obese. Yet, we also find that buying in a supermarket tends to decrease underweight among children and adolescents (age 5-19) in terms of stunting (height-for-age). In a third essay, we use secondary household survey data from Malawi to analyse ‘one of the other faces of malnutrition’. The world food price crisis of 2007/08 and other global and regional price and income shocks that followed have spurred interest in producing timely predictions on their implications for food security. A critical research gap remains with comparing simulation outcomes across studies that use different, established methods on the same subject. This is to establish if and to which extent they might result in different and potentially conflicting policy recommendations. We address this gap building on three simulation studies set in Malawi, which analyse welfare in terms of food security and income effects using the same 2004/05 household survey data but resort to methodologies of different complexity. We harmonize simulation scenarios across methods and systematically modify relevant parameters for our comparative assessment. We find differences between methods to depend on the scenario under consideration and to grow with increasing rates of simulated price changes. The differences we find are driven by differences in conceptualising price changes. In case of Malawi, for a reasonable set of observed price changes, mean outcomes on district levels are fairly robust to underlying methodologies. We illustrate that is it important to improve our understanding of how changes in the underlying methodologies change results and to analyse the sensitivity of simulation outcomes to different model assumptions.de
dc.contributor.coRefereeQaim, Matin Prof. Dr.
dc.contributor.thirdRefereeLay, Jann Prof. Dr.
dc.subject.gerNutrition Transitionde
dc.subject.gerFood Securityde
dc.subject.gerSupermarketde
dc.subject.gerBody Mass Indexde
dc.subject.gerDietary Transitionde
dc.subject.gerDeveloping Countriesde
dc.subject.gerStuntingde
dc.subject.gerRetail revolutionde
dc.subject.gerKenyade
dc.subject.gerMalawide
dc.subject.gerSimulation Studiesde
dc.subject.gerFood Consumptionde
dc.subject.gerDouble Burden of Malnutritionde
dc.subject.gerMalnutritionde
dc.subject.gerFood Price Shockde
dc.subject.engNutrition Transitionde
dc.subject.engFood Securityde
dc.subject.engSupermarketde
dc.subject.engBody Mass Indexde
dc.subject.engDietary Transitionde
dc.subject.engDeveloping Countriesde
dc.subject.engStuntingde
dc.subject.engRetail revolutionde
dc.subject.engKenyade
dc.subject.engMalawide
dc.subject.engSimultation Studiesde
dc.subject.engFood Consumptionde
dc.subject.engDouble Burden of Malnutritionde
dc.subject.engMalnutritionde
dc.subject.engFood Price Shockde
dc.identifier.urnurn:nbn:de:gbv:7-11858/00-1735-0000-0023-9973-7-7
dc.affiliation.instituteWirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultätde
dc.subject.gokfullWirtschaftswissenschaften (PPN621567140)de
dc.identifier.ppn813102626


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