USDA's Economic Research Service
TopicsTopics

Stay Connected

Follow ERS on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS feeds
Subscribe to ERS e-Newsletters.aspx
Listen to ERS podcasts
Read ERS blogs at USDA

An Analysis of U.S. Household Dairy Demand

by Christopher Davis, Diansheng Dong, Donald Blayney, and Ashley Owens

Technical Bulletin No. (TB-1928) 28 pp, December 2010

cover image for tb1928 This report examines retail purchase data for 12 dairy products and margarine from the Nielsen 2007 Homescan retail data. Selected demographic and socioeconomic variables included in the Nielsen data are analyzed for their effects on aggregate demand and expenditure elasticities for the selected products. A censored demand system is used to derive the demand elasticities. The resulting estimates revealed that the magnitudes of 10 of the 13 own-price elasticities are greater than 1; substitute relationships are found among most dairy categories; expenditure elasticities are 1 or greater for 7 of the 13 products; and demographic and socioeconomic variables are statistically significant contributors to dairy demand.

Keywords: Butter, cheese, censored demand, elasticities, margarine, milk, Nielsen Homescan data, yogurt

In this publication...

Need help with PDFs?

Order this Publication

Last updated: Sunday, May 27, 2012

For more information contact: Christopher Davis, Diansheng Dong, Donald Blayney, and Ashley Owens