아프리카ㆍ중동

Meat is one of the most essential food items in household consumption baskets. Despite the unprecedented attention worldwide given to the status of meat demand, there is currently no study that estimates meat demand considering income deciles. The primary goal of this study is to address this research gap. This study aimed to estimate the demand function and demand elasticities for various types of meat, including beef, lamb, chicken, and fish, across different income deciles of urban households in Iran using a seemingly unrelated regression method from 1994 to 2023. To achieve this goal, we estimated various flexible demand systems, such as AIDS, CBS, ROTTERDAM, and NBR models, by incorporating consumption habits effects for each decile. We then compared these models based on the number of significant coefficients in each decile, ultimately selecting the superior model. The results showed that all own-price elasticities in the first to tenth deciles are as theoretically expected and negative. Income elasticities in all deciles became positive, indicating that goods in household consumption baskets are normal. Cross-price elasticity results show that the reaction of various types of meat to price and income changes in different deciles is different, with some being substitutes in some deciles and complements in others. Furthermore, the results of consumption habits coefficients indicate that these coefficients are significant in some equations at a 5% level; therefore, neglecting the effects of consumption habits can lead to biases in estimating the demand function and consequently result in incorrect analysis of household consumption patterns. Hence, it is recommended that the effect of consumption habits be examined in demand analysis studies regarding meat.