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IFS Working Papers
January 2005 W05/03
Article
Exploring the returns to scale in food preparation (baking penny buns at home)
Type: IFS Working Papers
Authors: Thomas F Crossley and Yuqian Lu
ISSN: 1742-0415
Volume, issue, pages: 28 pp.
JEL classification: D11, D12, D13
Keywords: Household returns to scale, home production, food preparation

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We show that as household size increases, households substitute away from prepared foods and towards ingredients. They also devote more time to food preparation. These observations (1) are consistent with a simple model with home production, returns to scale in the time input to food preparation, and varieties of food that differ in the required time input; (2) support the idea that returns to scale in home production are an important source of returns to scale in consumption; and (3), mean that across household sizes, household market expenditures on food are not proportional to food consumption quantities. The latter may provide a partial explanation for a puzzle raised by Deaton and Paxson.

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