EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF THE DEMAND FOR FISH ACROSS HOUSEHOLD TYPES IN AKURE METROPOLIS, ONDO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Consumer demand is influenced by economic factors; own-price, the price of close substitutes, the price of complementary items, and household income, as well as by several non-economic factors including tastes and preferences. This study focused on demand analysis for fish and its substitutes across different household types in Akure Metropolis, Ondo State, Nigeria. The complete demand functions of the various animal protein sources were estimated. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 180 respondents for this study and they were interviewed through the use of structured questionnaire. The Linear Approximate Almost Ideal Demand System (LA-AIDS) was employed to estimate the demand elasticities. The results of the LA/AIDS revealed that for the pooled data, estimated own-price elasticities of demand for fish and its substitutes were negative in consonance with the law of demand. Comparative analysis between the low income households, middle income households and the high income households revealed that the size of the own-price elasticity and expenditure elasticity declined as income increased, and this implied that the proportion of income allocated to fish and its substitutes is higher for lower income households than for the other household types. The cross-price elasticity for fish and other animal protein sources studied were all found to be substitutes for each other across the various household types by reason of their positive cross-price elasticities. The expenditure elasticities were all positive implying that all the four meats are normal goods in the study area. The expenditure elasticities characterized fish, chicken, turkey and eggs as necessity goods for households in the study area. Moreover, the findings of this research revealed that the socio-economic factors that significantly determined the consumption of fish and its substitute in the study area were education, income and price. It is recommended therefore that any mechanism that enhances the incomes of the low income households especially,