In Search of India's Missing Calories: Energy requirements and Calorie Consumption

Nicholas Li, University of California, Berkeley
Shari Eli, University of California - Berkeley

Abstract

Despite the large growth in real expenditure and positive calorie-expenditure elasticities, calories consumed per person in India declined between 1983 and 2005. Similarly, rural households are found to be poorer than urban households but consume more calories on average. We test the energy requirements hypothesis of Deaton and Dreze (2009) as an explanation for these “missing” calories by using time-use data to impute household energy requirements. To show the differential effects of energy requirements and other factors on food quality and expenditures, we use a simple model to provide intuition and motivate our empirical approach. We find that variations in household characteristics such as size, age, education and occupation predict highly correlated fluctuations in caloric intake and requirements. Labor-saving durables also play an important role in caloric intake. Quantitatively, energy requirements can explain most of the missing calories between urban and rural areas. Over time, differing energy requirements explain approximately one-half of the changes in food quality but only a modest share of the total missing calories, which implies that other factors are important. Our results shed light on the importance of considering variations in energy requirements when formulating welfare and poverty measures.