Does Inequality Affect the Needs of the Poor?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bellet, Clement S.; Colson-Sihra, Eve
• 署名单位: Erasmus University Rotterdam; Erasmus University Rotterdam - Excl Erasmus MC; Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1542-4766
• DOI: 10.1093/jeea/jvae062
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 1272-1308
• 关键词: income inequality; liberalization evidence; redistribution evidence; engel curves; demand; preferences; consumption; food; deprivation; starvation

摘要

We investigate how inequality affects what is considered most necessary to purchase. Combining detailed consumption surveys in India with an instrumental variable approach, we first provide evidence that inequality is associated with a decrease in calorie consumption for poor households. This effect is driven by upward comparisons and associated with poor households spending more on luxuries, consistent with the relative deprivation theory. We then estimate a structural demand system to isolate the impact of inequality on needs from supply-side effects. We find that inequality increases the need of the poor for little luxuries (e.g., dairy products, energy use) at the expense of necessities (e.g., cereals). This shift in the hierarchy of needs accounts for more than two-thirds of the decline in the calorie consumption of the poor over the period.