Food, Economics, and Health
本书基于作者在全球多所大学的讲座，系统分析了食物、经济学与健康的复杂互动，重点探讨低收入国家食物消费与营养摄入的决定因素，以及营养对儿童健康和认知发展的影响，为政策制定者提供干预依据。
This book is particularly timely as the ‘obesity epidemic’ and the impact of the food crisis on the poor in developed countries are currently of great concern to policy-makers and researchers. Alok Bhargava presents an overview of the complex interactions among food, economics and health based on original lectures that he has taught at various universities around the world. Although not exclusively, the content of the book draws extensively on the author's own research, which explains the particular emphasis on applied econometrics in general, and panel data methods in particular. The book is organised in six core chapters, in addition to the conventional introduction and conclusion. The first five of these chapters deal with specific issues in low-income countries, with the primary aim of relating food demand to developmental outcomes, and drawing the relevant policy conclusions from this relationship. Chapter 2 provides the foundation for much of what follows by analysing the determinants of food consumption and nutritional intakes, both at household and individual levels. Empirical results from India, the Philippines and Kenya establish that income elasticities of demand for nutrients are typically positive but small, and the author therefore concludes that policy intervention to improve nutrition in low-income countries is desirable, as economic growth on its own is unlikely to resolve the issue of malnutrition within a reasonable time-frame. Chapters 3 and 4 then develop a causal chain from nutritional intake of both mother and child to children's health and cognitive development. The book argues that food policy-makers need to look beyond the issue of energy intake because of the evidence that dietary quality, in particular as it relates to micronutrients such as iron, calcium, and vitamins A and C, has a strong effect on children's physical development and morbidity. Given that, as shown in Chapter 4, health status in turn influences cognitive development, the findings have far-reaching implications for the accumulation of human capital and long-term development in low-income countries.