Household behaviour and nutrition in developing countries

This article reviews some of the recent major research findings concerning the effect of household behaviour on food consumption and nutrition. Important extensions to the understanding of household behaviour have been made in the areas of the impact of income and price changes, agricultural households, the effects of agricultural commercialization, the new household economics, and particularly the effect of time as a scarce economic resource, the intrahousehold allocation of food, and the determinants of nutritional status. This knowledge is important because the response by households affects the final impact of economic changes and government actions on the nutritional status of the population.