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Abstract
A poor diet fostered by a rapid increase in the supply of affordable processed food has
been mentioned as one of the major contributors to obesity and non-communicable
diseases. Associated to increases in affordability are the promotions used by retailers.
Their impact is controversial because promotions have been pointed to as a key factor
in expanding the expenditure on caloric-rich processed foods, but they are also used
by retailers for selling fruit and vegetables. This article focuses on the effect that
retailers’ promotions have on the Scottish diet. In this respect, Scotland is an
interesting case because it has one of the worst overweight and obesity records for
both adults and children within the OECD countries. Most studies on the effects of
promotions have been based on a single or reduced number of food products. Thus,
the purpose of this paper is to analyse the overall effect of promotions on the Scottish
food and drink purchases. This is achieved by analysing a representative scanner
panel dataset for the period 2006-13. The methodology consists of exploring the
impact of promotions on food expenditure and allocation, using for the latter an
augmented with promotions linear AIDS model, while controlling by food access
area, which was approximated by deprivation area. Results indicate that promotions
seem to have differentiated effects by category and similar results for all the
accessibility areas.