Dynamics of food consumption during political instability: evidence from Kyrgyzstan

Shocks might affect consumers quite differently. Traditional regression to the mean approaches ne- glects the within-sample heterogeneity. This paper evaluates households’ food consumption in Kyrgyzstan conditional upon their consumption “intensity” based on nationally representative household panel sur- veys before and after the two revolutions. A complete demand system is estimated, considering quality biases, spatial and temporal variations, and differences in household characteristics. Our results reveal that households are susceptible to income shocks for fruits & vegetables and meat & fish, which accounts for more than 50% of households’ food expenditures. The first revolution worsened household food con- sumption by widening the gap between urban and rural areas, while the adaptive capacity of households, driven by improved income stability, increased during the second revolution, allowing rural households to improve their diets with consumption of different types of products. The results of the more stable period show an improvement in the country’s food consumption; however, dietary habits have shifted towards over-processed and energy-intensive foods, posing a threat of overweight and related health problems.