Economic growth and nutrition transition: an empirical study comparing demand elasticities for foods in China and Russia

Considering emerging economies like China and Russia, we analyze whether income growth as a major driver of nutrition transition has a significant effect on the consumption of different food aggregates and how these effects differ between both countries. Therefore, we estimate expenditure elasticities of Chinese and Russian consumers for six different food aggregates. Our results indicate that future income growth in China and Russia will continue to increase meat and fat consumption. Although being a positive signal for problems of malnutrition in China that trend tends to further increase the incidence of nutrition-related chronic diseases in both countries