Meat consumers’ long-term response to perceived risks associated with BSE in Great Britain.

The purpose of this paper is to review the empirical evidence of the scale of the long-term impact of BSE on meat consumption in Great-Britain. The first two studies reviewed specified a dynamic demand system for 4 meats, using quarterly National Food Survey data for the period 1961:Q1 to 1995:Q4. The results suggest that as a consequence of BSE some portion of the beef market has been irretrievably lost and that this finding is robust. The second body of empirical work reviewed here was undertaken on behalf of the Meat and Livestock Commission (MMD,1997). Using four-weekly data from Audits of Great Britain, for the period January 1988 to March 1997, the analysis gives broadly comparable short-run shifts in the meat expenditure shares due to BSE, and indicates that there has been a long-run loss in the market, but the effect is not as great as would have been implied by the earlier models