Food, Economics, and Health

Drawing on the author's extensive and varied research, this book provides readers with a firm grounding in the concepts and issues across several disciplines including economics, nutrition, psychology and public health in the hope of improving the design of food policies in the developed and developing world. Using longitudinal (panel) data from India, Bangladesh, Kenya, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Pakistan and extending the analytical framework used in economics and biomedical sciences to include multi-disciplinary analyses, Alok Bhargava shows how rigorous and thoughtful econometric and statistical analysis can improve our understanding of the relationships between a number of socioeconomic, nutritional, and behavioural variables on a number of issues like cognitive development in children and labour productivity in the developing world. These unique insights combined with a multi-disciplinary approach forge the way for a more refined and effective approach to food policy formation going forward. A chapter on the growing obesity epidemic is also included, highlighting the new set of problems facing not only developed but developing countries. The book also includes a glossary of technical terms to assist readers coming from a variety of disciplines.

Alok Bhargava received his Ph.D. in econometrics from the London School of Economics in 1982. He has held teaching positions at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, and University of Houston. Since 1989, he has been working on issues of nutrition, population health, child development, demography, physical anthropology, and epidemiology in developing and developed countries. Most of his publications on problems facing developing and developed countries have appeared in leading scholarly journals; his research is often cited in academic and policy forums and has influenced food policies in many settings.