Caloric Requirements and Food Consumption Puzzles of the Poor

How much do caloric requirements vary across households and how do they affect food consumption patterns? Since caloric intake is a widely-used indicator of poverty and welfare, investigating changes in caloric requirements and food consumption patterns is important, especially for the poor. Combining anthropometric and time-use data for India, we construct a quantitative measure of individual and household caloric requirements. We then link our estimates of caloric requirements with consumption data to examine how caloric requirements coupled with household expenditures shape food demand. Our applications include the measurement of hunger and the role of caloric requirements in explaining food consumption puzzles related to household-scale and changes in caloric intake over time. ∗Corresponding author: [email protected]. We would like to thank Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, Chang-Tai Hsieh, Ronald Lee, and Ted Miguel for their comments and suggestions. We also thank Gustavo Bobonis, Stephan Litschig, Daniel Lafave, Pranab Bardhan, Tom Vogl, Anne Case, Jeff Hammer, as well as participants of the U.C. Berkeley Development Seminar, the Center for Health and Well-being seminar at Princeton University, University of Toronto applied micro seminar, North East Universities Development Consortium (NEUDC) conference and Population Association of America (PAA) conference. Lucas Parker provided outstanding research assistance. Nicholas Li gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the U.C. Berkeley Institute for Business and Economics Research, and the Center for Equitable Growth. Shari Eli gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the NICHD grant T32-HD007275 and NIA grant T32-AG000246.