Food, Economics, and Health - Hardcover

Bhargava, Alok

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199269149 ISBN 13: 9780199269143

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2008

Synopsis

Drawing on the author's extensive and varied research, this book provides readers with a firm grounding in the concepts and issues across several disciplines including economics, nutrition, psychology and public health in the hope of improving the design of food policies in the developed and developing world. Using longitudinal (panel) data from India, Bangladesh, Kenya, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Pakistan and extending the analytical framework used in economics and biomedical sciences to include multi-disciplinary analyses, Alok Bhargava shows how rigorous and thoughtful econometric and statistical analysis can improve our understanding of the relationships between a number of socioeconomic, nutritional, and behavioural variables on a number of issues like cognitive development in children and labour productivity in the developing world. These unique insights combined with a multi-disciplinary approach forge the way for a more refined and effective approach to food policy formation going forward. A chapter on the growing obesity epidemic is also included, highlighting the new set of problems facing not only developed but developing countries. The book also includes a glossary of technical terms to assist readers coming from a variety of disciplines.

About this title

About the Author:

Alok Bhargava received his Ph.D. in econometrics from the London School of Economics in 1982. He has held teaching positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University. Currently, he is a professor of economics at the University of Houston and an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston. Since 1989, he has been working on issues of nutrition, population health, child development, demography, and epidemiology in developing and developed countries. Many of his publications are on problems facing developing countries and have appeared in journals and his research is often cited in academic and policy forums and has influenced food policies in many settings.

Review:

`"Integrating food behavior, health activities, educational investments, and demographic choices into a coherent measure of family and individual welfare is a daunting task. This volume by Alok Bhargava succeeds in doing so at three different levels. First, the empirical models and techniques are state-of-the-art, so applied econometricians will be happy. Second, the models incorporate accepted bio-physical relationships from the public health and medical communities, so biological scientists interested in health-nutrition linkages no longer feel left out from economists' analyses. And third, the food policy community now has a rigorous, empirically-based set of relationships that are amenable to public interventions. It is very good to have food policy analysis back on the research agenda in such an integrated and toughly empirical fashion."' C. Peter Timmer, Visiting Professor, Program on Food Security and Environment, Stanford University

`In this book, Bhargava tackles a rich and difficult field of population health that leads to questions about the objectives of a society and the difficult choices about how best to target resources. It should be remembered that countless intellectual giants from the past, such as Newton, Galileo, and Shakespeare, lived and succeeded whilst living in conditions that would now be considered as deplorable. Economics and scientific discovery can take us some way towards making rational decisions but one needs philosophy and sound politics to reach the best outcomes. This is an excellent book which requires careful thought and introspection to get to all its important topics.' Clive Granger, 2003 Nobel Prize for Economics Laureate

`Integrating food behavior, health activities, educational investments, and demographic choices into a coherent measure of family and individual welfare is a daunting task. This volume by Alok Bhargava succeeds in doing so at three different levels. First, the empirical models and techniques are state-of-the-art, so applied econometricians will be happy. Second, the models incorporate accepted bio-physical relationships from the public health and medical communities, so biological scientists interested in health-nutrition linkages no longer feel left out from economists' analyses. And third, the food policy community now has a rigorous, empirically-based set of relationships that are amenable to public interventions. It is very good to have food policy analysis back on the research agenda in such an integrated and toughly empirical fashion.' C. Peter Timmer, Visiting Professor, Program on Food Security and Environment, Stanford University

This book would be most beneficial to researchers carrying out analysis of food and health issues because the author presents, step-by-step and in a non-technical manner, the research process that underlies the work of an eminent econometrician. --European Review of Agricultural Economics

As a whole, this book is an excellent summary of a wide literature and of the models that underlie the approaches of different disciplines [economics, nutrition, psychology, demography, epidemiology, and public health]. --Population Studies

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0199269149
• ISBN 13: 9780199269143
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240