The agricultural household in Bangladesh: A disaggregated empirical analysis with particular emphasis on the demand for food calories

This thesis will attempt to delineate the salient economic characteristics of the agricultural household in Bangladesh and to show the relevance of these households for economic policy. The primary concern in the first chapter is an analysis of the behavior of an integrated rural household, and demonstration of the significance of linkage between its production operation and consumption allocation. The demand elasticities of the household are estimated using a linear expenditure system while a Cobb-Douglas production function is estimated to measure the household's reaction in the production planning. Allowing profit to be endogenous we demonstrate the significance of the interaction between the recursive entities of the household as a consumer and a producer at the same time. This allows us to look at the total market response to changes in the exogenous variables that affect the farm household and the rural economy.;The focus of the second chapter is the relationship between household expenditure and its total calorie intake. Recent empirical findings of extremely low expenditure elasticity of calories have questioned the notion that increase in income would lead to better nutritional status. Using expenditure data we employ generalized quantile regressions to estimate the expenditure elasticities and use nonparametric smoothing techniques to depict the relationship between income and elasticity. Except for the case of middle income urban households, most of our results conform to the conventional wisdom that expenditure elasticity of calories is positive. We also demonstrate that expenditure elasticity of calorie consumption declines as household income increases.;The motivation for the third chapter is to find empirical support to justify increased rate of rural and urban migration. Here we estimate the pattern of consumption behavior of urban and rural households and look for existing differences. Using Todaro's model of expected wages for a migrant worker, we calculate the net benefit derived from rural-urban migration. Under realistic assumptions, we show that the benefit derived from immigration to cities outweighs the cost of emigration on rural economies. Therefore, from efficiency's point of view migration is a good thing and justifies the idea increased of rural-urban migration.