The consumption of beverages at home: an econometric analysis of demand and purchases in France in 1997.

Summary After a presentation of the evolution of cold drink consumption from 1950 to 1997 as shown by national accounts figures and food surveys of the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, the author focuses his study on the year 1997. The data used for the empirical estimates come from a panel of households residing in France and monitored daily. In the first chapter, the author presents a descriptive analysis of 35 groups of beverages covering all cold drinks and characterizes the buyers and non-buyers. In the second chapter, he estimates an almost ideal quadratic demand system to analyze the demand for beverages divided into nine distinct groups. Price elasticities are calculated using unit values instead of prices, as is usually done. As a result, these elasticities reflect both a quantity effect and a quality effect. In the third chapter, a recent method that allows the quality effect to be separated from the quantity effect and the corresponding elasticities to be calculated is implemented. The observed substitutions between drinks highlight situations of use: drinks drunk with meals, as aperitifs, for conviviality or for quenching thirst. Finally, the fourth chapter proposes a supply model to explain household storage behavior. The model assumes that the current price and the price of the product at the last purchase are sufficient.