Estimating Demand Elasticities for a Small Island Economy: Fiji

An understanding of the responsiveness of food demand to price changes is critical to decision making in the area of food policy. The estimation of these elasticities is difficult in developing countries, such as Fiji, due to a lack of reliable data. We review the existing data on food demand elasticities in Fiji and examine alternative approaches to their estimation given the data constraints present. We use a stated preference approach to provide a new set of estimates of food demand elasticities for Fiji using cross section data.