Essays on Food Consumption, Income Inequality, and Health-related Issues in China

This cumulative dissertation consists of five independent contributions that empirically analyze food consumption, income inequality, as well as health-related issues such as alcohol and cigarette consumption, as well as overweight. The first study is devoted to examine heterogeneity in food consumption among various income classes and to investigate the impact that changes in income distribution patterns have on food demand in rural China. The second study investigates the impact of education on income inequality between ethnic minorities and Han in China by using an instrumental variable approach to account for the endogeneity of education in income equations. The third study attempts to shed light on the relationship between cigarette and alcohol consumption using a structural equation model. The fourth study addresses how education impacts the unhealthy consumption behaviors and their intergenerational persistence. The last study provides a theoretic model and empirical estimation to detect how income affects overweight regarded as a consequence of unhealthy food consumption.

• Department of Agricultural Economics of the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel

• China Scholarship Council (CSC)
• H. Wilhelm Schaumann Stiftung

Dissertation

Ren, Yanjun (2017) Essays on food consumption, income inequality, and health-related issues in China. Download