02 The Pattern of Food Expenditures.docx
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1、 The Pattern of Food Expenditures Author(s): Dorothy S. Brady and Helen A. Barber Source: The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Aug., 1948), pp. 198-206 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http:/www.jstor.org/stable/1926749 Accessed: 17-03-2017 09:49 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-prof
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4、7.66.218.73 on Fri, 17 Mar 2017 09:49:13 UTC All use subject to http:/about.jstor.org/terms THE PATTERN OF FOOD EXPENDITURES Dorothy S. Brady and Helen A. Barber INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY IN a discussion of a paper on the correlation between savings and the income distribution, Simon Kuznets noted th
5、at the savings curves for different places or different dates can be de- scribed as differing with respect to level and with respect to slope.1 This description holds as well when savings are compared in terms of relative income position as when savings are related to current dollar income. If the t
6、erm “level” is defined as a difference in position that can be eliminated by a translation of the coordinates, and the term slope? defined as a difference in scale that can be eliminated by an expansion (or contraction) of the coordinate units,Mr. Kuznets observations imply that a transformation of
7、the form xr = a + bx y = c + dy may close the differences between the savings curves for different places or different dates. Such a linear transformation expressing a translation and an expansion of the coordinates, it appears, reduces substantially the difference between the food expenditures of u
8、rban families in relation to income for the surveys made between 1901 and 1944 throughout the range of incomes up to the sixth or seventh decile. The parameters of the transformation may be interpreted as measures of “level” which reflects secular changes in the standard of food consumption and of a
9、price?, in a general sense. The transformation also reduces the differences between income distributions and thus describes a correspondence between the food expenditure curve and the income distribution. FOOD EXPENDITURE AND INCOME The food expenditure curve was chosen for the examination of this a
10、pproach for two rea- 1 Simon Kuznets, “Comment on Dorothy S. Brady and 198 sons. The variation between the food curves, food expenditures expressed as a percentage of income, is reduced in general more than the savings curves when correlated with relative income position.2 Secondly, it is now possib
11、le to eliminate the variation due to family size from the data by a fairly accurate adjustment procedure.3 For this study the observed data on average food expenditures by income bracket were all standardized to the corresponding figure for 3.5 persons as the average size of family. The average size
12、 3.5 persons was se Rose D. Friedman, Savings and the Income Distribution, Studies in Income and Wealth, Volume io (National Bureau of Economic Research, New York, 1947). 2 Rose D. Friedman initiated the study of the food expenditure curves and other group curves in this manner in order to trace, if
13、 possible, the changes in consumption pattern that are associated with changes in the position of the curve for total expenditures or its complement, total savings. Some tentative results of this study are being prepared for publication. 3 The adjustment procedure is based on a study of the regressi
14、ons of food expenditures on family size at the same income bracket for all the surveys, from 1901 to date, that have tabulated food expenditures by income and size of family. The regressions are logarithmic, log y = a b log x, where y is the food expenditure and x is the size of family. The regressi
15、on coefficient, b, varies from about 0.25 to 0.50 and appears to center around Ys, the value taken pro tem as the average. While in the lower and middle income brackets there appears no tendency for the values of uby, to change systematically with income, at the highest incomes observed the values o
16、f all tend to be above the average. It is possible that the values of “6” increase at first slowly and then more and more rapidly with income, but this interaction, which may be due to an increasing proportion of adults in families of each size, say 4 persons, as the income is increased, remains to
17、be explored. For the purposes of this study, the average value of Yz was accepted as applicable throughout the entire range of incomes. The adjustment factor was accordingly based on the relation between the mean and the mean cube root for the size of family as determined by the distributions of fam
18、ilies by size within income brackets observed in recent surveys. The relationship found is purely empirical and applies only to urban families. The mean cube root y is related to the mean x as follows: y = .1138 log -f .8731 This relation provides the basis for adjusting the observed average expendi
19、ture on food for the observed average size of family to the average food expenditure for any other average size. This content downloaded from 67.66.218.73 on Fri, 17 Mar 2017 09:49:13 UTC All use subject to http:/about.jstor.org/terms ;45i $ 217 643 284 883 354 1118 406 1358 444 1631 486 1879 544 23
20、16 614 ;771 $ 338 832 354 i 75 426 1344474 1632 SiS 1925 560 2272 616 2790 723 ;792 $ 342 1324 S i 1835 651 2641 840 3469 920 4320 1089 1934 f 1935-36 4 1941 TT 1944 Average Income Average Expenditure For Food Average Income Average Expenditure For Food Average Income Average Expenditure For Food Av
21、erage Income Average Expenditure For Food $ 592 $ 292 $ 3 5 $ 241 $ 3 4 $ 33 $ 313 $ 424 771 332 622 293 738 378 776 492 1065 4 3 856 352 I29 498 1243 6 I 1343 459 1090 413 1764 604 1779 736 1633 519 1324 467 2448 716 2259 855 1929 567 1686 537 3757 837 2757 948 2250 625 2150 614 6575 I 5l 3480 1025
22、 2798 726 2625 683 13987 1710 4408 1100 3312 761 7595 1314 4247 847 6641 1085 * For method of standardizing the data for family size, see text, t Eighteenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor “Cost of Living and the Retail Prices of Food,” 1903. Average income taken as the midpoint of the in
23、tervals except for the class $1,200, which was estimated from the average income of the entire sample. The data relate to urban communities of all sizes. t Great Britain Board of Trade, “Cost of Living in American Towns, 1911. The averages for the North and the South, nationality and racial groups (
24、shown separately in the report) were weighted together using the census proportions for the North and South, white and negro groups and the survey proportions for the nationality groups. The data relate to wage-earner families in large cities. U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin 357, nCost of
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