Changes in food demand in the EU member states and selected OECD countries: the impact of disposable income, unemployment, and inflation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3846/tede.2025.25253

Abstract

This study focuses on consumption patterns: as societies get richer, their attitude toward the level and structure of consumption changes. Unemployment and inflation might influence consumption patterns. This paper aims to analyze the impact of unemployment and inflation on the convergence of food demand in households in the EU Member States and selected OECD countries from 1995 to 2019. The analysis of β-conditional convergence proved that the convergence of the share of food expenditure was positively conditioned by the unemployment level and negatively by the disposable income, but with no inflation influence. While in club convergence of more developed economies, with a higher inflation level comes a higher share of disposable income spent on food.

First published online 27 November 2025

Keywords:

convergence, disposable income, inflation, food expenditure, spatial analysis, sustainable consumption, unemployment

How to Cite

Grodzicki, T., & Jankiewicz, M. (2025). Changes in food demand in the EU member states and selected OECD countries: the impact of disposable income, unemployment, and inflation. Technological and Economic Development of Economy, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.3846/tede.2025.25253

Share

Published in Issue
November 27, 2025
Abstract Views
30

References

Aguiar, M., & Hurst, E. (2005). Consumption versus expenditure. Journal of Political Economy, 113(5), 919–948. https://doi.org/10.1086/491590

Akinboade, O. A., Mokwena, M. P. & Adeyefa, S. A. (2016). Determinants of food insecurity among the urban poor in the city of Tshwane, South Africa. Journal of Economics, 4(2), 101–114.

Amable, B. (1993). Catch-up and convergence: A model of cumulative growth. International Review of Applied Economics, 7(1), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/758528250

Amrullah, E. R., Ishida, A., Pullaila, A., & Rusyiana, A. (2019). Who suffers from food insecurity in Indonesia? International Journal of Social Economics, 46(10), 1186–1197. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSE-03-2019-0196

Anand, R., Prasad, E. S., & Zhang, B. (2015). What measure of inflation should a developing country central bank target? Journal of Monetary Economics, 74, 102–116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmoneco.2015.06.006

Antelo, M., Magdalena, P., & Reboredo, J. C. (2017). Economic crisis and the unemployment effect on household food expenditure: The case of Spain. Food Policy, 69, 11–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2017.03.003

Arbia, G. (2006). Spatial Econometrics: Statistical foundations and applications to regional convergence. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-32305-8

Arend, T., Botev, J., & Fraisse, A.-S. (2024). Does the slowdown in inflation mean that consumers are better off? OECD Statistics. https://oecdstatistics.blog/2024/11/06/does-the-slowdown-in-inflation-mean-that-consumers-are-better-off/

Aykaç, G. (2018). The disability law in Turkey and the income elasticity of food demand: The relationship of budget share of food expenditures with household profile and total expenditure (2003–2013). Sosyoekonomi Journal, 26(38), 105–133. https://doi.org/10.17233/sosyoekonomi.2018.04.07

Barro, R. J., Sala-I-Martin, X., Blanchard, O. J., & Hall, R. E. (1991). Convergence across states and regions. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1991(1), 107–182. https://doi.org/10.2307/2534639

Barro, R. J., & Sala-i-Martin, X. (1997). Technological diffusion, convergence, and growth. Journal of Economic Growth, 2(1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009746629269

Benda-Prokeinová, R., Dobeš, K., Mura, L., & Buleca, J. (2017). Engel’s approach as a tool for estimating consumer behaviour. Economie a Management, 20(2), 15–29. https://doi.org/10.15240/tul/001/2017-2-002

Borkotoky, K., & Unisa, S. (2018). Inequality in food expenditure in India and the contributing factors. Journal of Quantitative Economics, 16(3), 647–680. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40953-017-0099-y

Breusch, T. S., & Pagan, A. R. (1980). The lagrange multiplier test and its applications to model specification in econometrics. The Review of Economic Studies, 47(1), 239–253. https://doi.org/10.2307/2297111

Campos, R. G., & Reggio, I. (2015). Consumption in the shadow of unemployment. European Economic Review, 78, 39–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2015.04.006

Dilanchiev, A., & Taktakishvili, T. (2021). Macroeconomic determinants of household consumptions in Georgia. Annals of Financial Economics, 16(4), Article 2150020. https://doi.org/10.1142/S2010495221500202

Elhorst, J. P. (2014). Spatial panel models. In M. M. Fischer & P. Nijkamp (Eds.), Handbook of regional science (pp. 1637–1652). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23430-9_86

Elsner, K. (1999). Analysing Russian food expenditure using micro-data (Discussion Paper No. 23). Institute of Agricultural Development in Central and Eastern Europe.

Engle, R. F. (1984). Wald, likelihood ratio, and Lagrange multiplier tests in econometrics. In Handbook of econometrics (Vol. 2, pp. 775–826). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1573-4412(84)02005-5

Fingleton, B., & López-Bazo, E. (2006). Empirical growth models with spatial effects. Papers in Regional Science, 85(2), 177–198. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1435-5957.2006.00074.x

Grodzicki, T., & Jankiewicz, M. (2022). Ecological situation and changes in food demand in the EU member states and selected OECD countries: Spatio-temporal analysis. Food Quality and Preference, 97, Article 104497. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2021.104497

Healy, A. E. (2014). Convergence or difference? Western European household food expenditure. British Food Journal, 116(5), 792–804. https://doi.org/10.1108/BFJ-11-2012-0274

Herzberg-Druker, E., & Stier, H. (2019). Family matters: The contribution of households’ educational and employment composition to income inequality. Social Science Research, 82, 221–239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2019.04.012

Jankiewicz, M. (2019). The convergence of food expenditures in the European Union countries – a spatio temporal approach. Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Oeconomica, 1(340), 91–106. https://doi.org/10.18778/0208-6018.340.06

Jankiewicz, M., & Pietrzak, M. B. (2020). Assesment of trends in the share of expenditure on Services and food in the Visegrad Group Member States. International Journal of Business and Society, 21(2), Article 977–996. https://doi.org/10.33736/ijbs.3306.2020

Jankiewicz, M., & Szulc, E. (2021). Analysis of spatial effects in the relationship between CO2 emissions and renewable energy consumption in the context of economic growth. Energies, 14(18), Article 5829. https://doi.org/10.3390/en14185829

Kaplan, G., & Schulhofer-Wohl, S. (2017). Inflation at the household level. Journal of Monetary Economics, 91, 19–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmoneco.2017.08.002

Li, Q., Yuan, S., Yu, Z., Larsson, S. C., & He, Q. (2021). Association of food expenditure with life expectancy in the United States, 2001–2014. Nutrition, 91–92, Article 111310. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nut.2021.111310

Liang, W., Sivashankar, P., Hua, Y., & Li, W. (2024). Global food expenditure patterns diverge between low-income and high-income countries. Nature Food, 5(7), 592–602. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-024-01012-y

Loeb, B. S. (1955). The use of Engel’s Laws as a basis for predicting consumer expenditures. Journal of Marketing, 20(1), 20–27. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224295502000103

Manski, C. (1993). Identification of endogenous social effects: The reflection problem. The Review of Economic Studies, 60(3), 531–542. https://doi.org/10.2307/2298123

Moran, P. A. P. (1950). Notes on continuous stochastic phenomena. Biometrika, 37(1–2), 17–23. https://doi.org/10.1093/biomet/37.1-2.17

Murtagh, F., & Legendre, P. (2014). Ward’s hierarchical agglomerative clustering method: Which algorithms implement War’s criterion? Journal of Classification, 31(3), 274–295. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00357-014-9161-z

Nordhaus, W. D. (1975). The political business cycle. The Review of Economic Studies, 42(2), 169–190. https://doi.org/10.2307/2296528

Perthel, D. (1975). Engel’s Law revisited. International Statistical Review / Revue Internationale de Statistique, 43(2), 211–218. https://doi.org/10.2307/1402900

Pope, R. (2012). Engel’s Law. BYU Studies Quarterly, 51(3), 119–140.

Qi, Y., Qin, H., Liu, P., Liu, J., Raslanas, S., & Banaitienė, N. (2022). Macroprudential policy, house price fluctuation and household consumption. Technological and Economic Development of Economy, 28(3), 804–830. https://doi.org/10.3846/tede.2022.16787

Regmi, A., & Unnevehr, L. J. (2005, August 24–27). Convergence or divergence in food demand: Comparison of trends in the EU and North America [Conference presentation]. The 11th Congress of the EAAE “The future of rural Europe in the global agri-food system”. Copenhagen, Denmark. https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.24687

Schabenberger, O., & Gotway, C. A. (2005). Statistical methods for spatial data analysis. CRC Press.

Seefeldt, K. S. (2015). Constant consumption smoothing, limited investments, and few repayments: The role of debt in the financial lives of economically vulnerable families. Social Service Review, 89(2), 263–300. https://doi.org/10.1086/681932

Sénit, C.-A. (2020). Transforming our world? Discursive representation in the negotiations on the Sustainable Development Goals. International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, 20(3), 411–429. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-020-09489-1

Seyfang, G. (2009). The new economics of sustainable consumption. Palgrave. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230234505

Szczepańska-Woszczyna, K., Gedvilaitė, D., Nazarko, J., Stasiukynas, A., & Rubina, A. (2022). Assessment of economic convergence among countries in the European Union. Technological and Economic Development of Economy, 28(5), 1572–1588. https://doi.org/10.3846/tede.2022.17518

Tabner, I. T. (2016). Buying versus renting – Determinants of the net present value of home ownership for individual households. International Review of Financial Analysis, 48, 233–246. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.irfa.2016.10.004

Taylor, L. D. (2022). Analysis of impacts of inflation on the distribution of household consumption expenditures. Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics, 70(3), 239–258. https://doi.org/10.1111/cjag.12315

Tobler, W. R. (1970). A computer movie simulating urban growth in the Detroit region. Economic Geography, 46, 234–240. https://doi.org/10.2307/143141

Vivel-Búa, M., Rey-Ares, L., Lado-Sestayo, R., & Fernández-López, S. (2019). Financial planning for retirement: The role of income. International Journal of Bank Marketing, 37(6), 1419–1440. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJBM-09-2018-0253

Ward, J. H. (1963). Hierarchical grouping to optimize an objective function. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 58(301), 236–244. https://doi.org/10.1080/01621459.1963.10500845

Xiao, J. J., & Li, H. (2011). Sustainable consumption and life satisfaction. Social Indicators Research, 104(2), 323–329. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-010-9746-9

Zhang, S. (2012). The impact of inflation on expenditures and happiness in China. Southern Business & Economic Journal, 35(1), 53–71.

Zimmerman, C. C. (1932). Ernst Engel’s Law of expenditures for food. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 47(1), 78–101. https://doi.org/10.2307/1885186

View article in other formats

CrossMark check

CrossMark logo

Published

2025-11-27

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Grodzicki, T., & Jankiewicz, M. (2025). Changes in food demand in the EU member states and selected OECD countries: the impact of disposable income, unemployment, and inflation. Technological and Economic Development of Economy, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.3846/tede.2025.25253

Share