link between income and nutrition, especially for children.5 The income elasticity
of the demand for calories (that is, the percentage change in calories consumed
for a percentage change in family incomes) among low-income people
range from near zero to about 0.5, depending on the region and the statistical
strategy used by the researchers.6 This less than proportional response is due to
two factors: Income is spent on other goods besides food, and part of the increased
food expenditures is used to increase food variety without necessarily
increasing the consumption of calories. If the relationship between income and
nutrition is indeed quite low, as some studies suggest, then development policies
that emphasize increasing incomes of the poor without attention to the
way these additional resources are expended within the family may not lead to
improved health, and successful development more generally, at least not very
quickly.7 As discussed further in Chapter 15 and its case study, credit for microenterprises
has been one of the most popular poverty alleviation strategies
in recent years. In this case, credit may help the poor improve their nutrition,
for example, because seasonal price fluctuations are also shown to be an important
determinant of calorie consumption along with average income among the
very poor, but credit will not be sufficient if nutrition remains inadequate and
does not improve automatically with higher income.