Disaggregating household expenditures on food away from home in Beijing by type of food facility and type of meal

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors influencing household food consumption away from home in Beijing by type of food facility and type of meal. Design/methodology/approach - Derived from the Becker's household production and consumption theory, the authors econometrically specified household expenditure function on food away from home. Box-Cox transformed double-hurdle models were estimated. The data were collected in 2007 in Beijing China by the authors, using a diary-based method designed specifically for this study. Findings - Household income, time opportunity cost and other socio-demographic and economic factors were found to be important determinants of household participation and expenditure decisions for dining out. However, the importance of these factors varied by type of food facility and type of meal. Meanwhile, the estimated elasticities with respect to income were correspondingly higher than those for developed countries, suggesting that the demand for food away from home by Chinese households is still in an upward trend. Originality/value - To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to analyze Chinese household food consumption away from home by type of food facility and type of meal. Besides, this study uses an exclusive dataset collected from a seven-day diary-based survey. The data include more specific information on food away from home than the Urban Household Income and Expenditure (UHIE) survey data conducted by National Bureau of Statistics of China. The ME data were extensively used in previous studies on food consumption in China, but are believed to significantly underestimate food away from home consumption.