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Abstract
Excerpts: This report was prepared by Harvard University under a contract with the U. S. Department of Agriculture. It deals with the possibilities of using data collected from a panel of consumers in conducting studies of the demand for food. It is being made available in this form primarily as a working tool for those concerned with analyses of the demand for agricultural products. The usefulness of consumer-panel data is tested primarily on the basis of purchases of meat, fish, and poultry reported by consumers in a New England community. The study on which the report is based is part of a program of research designed to evaluate and improve methods of determining the importance of various factors affecting the volume of farm products sold. The research project on which this report is based had two objectives: The first was to evaluate the consumer panel--a sample of consumers who keep daily records of purchases or consumption or both over a period of time--as a technique of research in demand analyses. The second was to test specific hypotheses concerning consumer purchase behavior as reflected in the demand for meat, fish, and poultry in a selected community. The hypotheses tested concerned the influence on purchase behavior of prices, income, family size, age, education, ethnic background, religion, and occupational status of the housewife. In addition, interrelations between demographic variation and price and income elasticities were investigated.