Household Vegetable Demand in the Philippines: Is There an Urban-Rural Divide?

A three-step estimation method and a Nonlinear Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System (NQAIDS) are used to assess the vegetable demand behavior of rural and urban households in the Philippines. The results show that most of the expenditure and own-price elasticities of the vegetables analyzed are near or larger than unitary in both rural and urban areas. For majority of the vegetable commodities, there are no significant differences in the expenditure, own-price, and cross-price elasticities of urban households relative to rural households. Only demand for cabbage and tomatoes in the urban areas tend to be statistically different compared to rural areas. The demand behavior information gleaned from the analysis provides important insights that could help guide nutritional and public policies in rural and urban areas of the Philippines