Effect of GDP Per Capita On Dietary Decisions Internationally

• Main Author: Emile, Shaneeka
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Scholarly Commons 2020
• Subjects: Economics; Canada; New Zealand; Iceland
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.susqu.edu/ssd/2020/videos/4; https://scholarlycommons.susqu.edu/context/ssd/article/1491/type/native/viewcontent

The goal of this project is to analyse and understand how GDP per capita affects an individual’s dietary decisions. A total of nine countries were used in this project which included, China, Japan, United States, Iceland, United Kingdom, France, New Zealand, Canada, and South Korea. The dependent variable being analysed was the % vegetarian population in each country and the independent variables included nominal GDP, GDP per capita, annual GDP growth rate, population size, meat consumption (kg/capita), and unemployment rate. To analyse the data a regression analysis was done. Degrees of freedom was 182 with all the independent variables, with the exception of GDP per capita, showing a negative relationship to the dependent variable. To account for heterogeneity of each country a fixed effect regression model was done which showed GDP per capita having a negative relationship with the % vegetarian population in each country, and it was statistically significant at the 1% level. Omitting all other independent variables, GDP per capita was analysed for its role on dietary decisions. A regression model without fixed effect was compared to a regression with fixed effect. Results concluded that other factors such as culture or geographic location play a much bigger role in an individual’s dietary decision.