Fayez AL-Mikdad(1) Osama AL-Janadi(1) and Ahamad AL-Rifaee(1)
(1). Administration of Socio-Economics, General Commission of Scientific Agricultural Research (GCSAR), Damascus, Syria.
(*Corresponding author: Dr. Fayez Al-Mikdad. E-Mail: deepmokdad@yahoo.com).
Received: 23/10/2016 Accepted: 18/11/2016
Abstract
The vegetable oils are a good source of energy, and are economically important. It is dramatically consumed in dietary patterns in Syria, in addition to the main role of vegetable oils in many food industries. The statistics revealed an increasing in domestic consumption of vegetable oils in Syria, thereby increasing amount of imports. This research aimed to estimate the demand function for vegetable oils, and to describe the relationships among changes in the amount consumed, prices, and income, to achieve that goal. The research has based on secondary data from the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Central Bureau of Statistics, in addition to the cross-sectional data obtained from a simple random sample consisting of 191 consumers in Damascus. The changes in the studied variables were followed periodically, every three months for one year (started from the fourth quarter of 2012 to the third quarter of 2013). The research based on descriptive statistical analysis as well as quantitative analysis to estimate the demand function for vegetable oil, and to derive the price, cross, and income elasticities. The study showed that the price and income elasticities of vegetable oils generally amounted to 0.2258, 0.1782 respectively, and there was a significant cross elasticity between sunflower and soybean oils as alternatives to each other.
Key words: Demand function, price, Cross and income elasticities, Consumption of vegetable oils, Alternative goods.
Full paper in Arabic: PDF