Food expenditure and economic development

In this article Earnst Engel's statements about the relationship between food expenditure are investigated for 80 countries. Food expenditure as a percentage of all expenditure is shown to have a distinctive geographical distribution, and is related to Gross National Product per capita, although not in a simple linear manner. Historical data for the percentage are discussed and a decline over time and with increasing income is observed. However for some periods of income growth there is no decline and some possible reasons for this are discussed.