Food Insecurity and Rising Food Prices : What Do We Learn from Experiential Measures?

Jolliffe, Dean ; Seff, Ilana ; de la Fuente, Alejandro

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: FOOD SECURITY;    FOOD PRICES;    ANXIETY;    LSMS;    LIVING STANDARDS MEASUREMENT SURVEY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8442
RP-ID  :  WPS8442

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Throughout many countries in the world,the measurement of food security currently includesaccounting for the importance of perception and anxietyabout meeting basic food needs. Using panel data fromMalawi, this paper shows that worrying about food securityis linked to self-reports of having experienced foodinsecurity, and the analysis provides evidence that rapidlyrising food prices are a source of the anxiety andexperiences of food insecurity. This finding controls forindividual-level fixed effects and changes in the economicwell-being of the individual. A particularly revealingfinding of the importance of accounting for anxiety inassessing food insecurity is that individuals report asignificant increase in experiences of food insecurity inthe presence of rapidly rising food prices even when dietarydiversity and caloric intake is stable.