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In this chapter, authors highlight the need for bringing the fields of economics and nutrition together to address the problems of nutrition in an economic and policy perspective. This chapter also gives a short overview of the rest of the chapters in the book.

This chapter uses a widely accepted conceptual framework for studying the determinants of nutrition security that is applied throughout this book and shows how analytical approaches described in the chapters of this book are interconnected in addressing malnutrition as a multidisciplinary and complex problem that requires a multi-sectoral approach for developing interventions and their implementation. While using the commonly agreed upon framework for analyzing the nutritional challenges, multidisciplinary approaches allow opportunities for challenging the conventional wisdom and approaches.

Food policy analysts are interested in the factors that influence the demand for food and nutrients. The major focus of this chapter is to use the foundations of microeconomic theory of consumer behavior to develop testable implications, using market data. The functional forms and estimable equations are useful for policy makers, because important information via elasticities can be computed from these specifications. These elasticity expressions from the Indirect Addilog Model, the Rotterdam Model, the translog, and the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS) are a few examples of these applications. In this chapter, the authors present the theory of demand systems and review various models specified to estimate food demand parameters. They also review specific studies from various regions of the world to give exposure to the current and earlier notable literature. They use the QUAIDS model to demonstrate how the estimation procedures could be implemented in data analysis and statistical software (STATA).

This chapter presents the microeconomic aspects of nutrition in the context of demand for food and nutrients. It also extends microeconomic principles in the context of intra-household allocation of nutrients among family members, and further considers optimal nutrition as an outcome of a production process involving inputs such as food intake, health status, care, and water and sanitation. Understanding nutrition from household and individual economic perspectives can help in designing programs that alter behaviors toward nutritional intake. This chapter introduces basic economic principles to nutritionally trained readers.

This chapter presents the global nutrition challenges and analyzes the trend in nutritional indicators. It also provides definitions for nutritional indicators, and clarifies the age-old confusion of terminologies such as hunger, food insecurity, malnutrition, over-nutrition, under-nutrition, and hidden hunger. A common set of definitions can help readers from various disciplines to speak the same language on nutrition challenges and solutions. It connects the global nutrition challenges to the recent efforts to address them through global and regional approaches, including the newly agreed upon sustainable development goals.

Macroeconomic aspects of nutritional policies and the implications of macro policies on nutritional outcomes are presented in this chapter. Macroeconomic policies and the changes in global economic trends have a profound impact on human welfare, as is indicated by poverty, hunger, and malnutrition levels. Understanding the pathways through which such changes affect nutritional outcomes is important for designing policies that will improve nutritional outcomes, and protect vulnerable sections of the population from sliding into poverty and malnutrition. Yet such analysis continues to be the domain of very few macroeconomists. The purpose of this chapter, which complements Chapter 4, Microeconomic Nutrition Policy, on microeconomic issues and their application to food consumption and nutrition, is to expose the readers to the approaches to studying the nutritional implications of macroeconomic policies.