Nutrition and Health: Structural Analysis of Egg Consumption in Canada

Nonparametric and parametric demand analyses are used to investigate the structural changes in egg consumption in Canada over the period 1978:1-2001:4. The nonparametric empirical results show that Canadian egg demand has undergone structural change, consistent with news coverage of egg-cholesterol nutrition issues, introduction of new products into the market, popularization of Atkin's diet and other variables. The results from the parametric method revealed that the impacts of advertising and media information index are significant and time varying. Furthermore, the media information index is found to have a significant effect on the size of advertising elasticities. With a larger number of positive media articles, the bigger the impact of shell egg advertising. The results of this study provide important information for policy makers and producers, processors in the egg industry