| Summary: | The nutrition transition associated with economic development and rapid urbanisation in Thailand has led to increasing incidence of overnutrition in some segments of the population. This has been attributed to significant shifts in dietary intake patterns characterised by an increase in the fat density of energy intakes and excessive sugar consumption. Given that overnutrition is a proximate cause of obesity and several chronic diseases, the promotion of healthier dietary patterns has become an important concern for public health policy. In the first part of the thesis, we investigate the determinants of overnutrition and compare the differential effects of these determinants between the predominantly urbanised central region and the less urbanised northeast region in Thailand. With data from the Thai Food Consumption Survey, we use quantile regressions and counterfactual decompositions to decompose the differences between the two regions into "covariate" effects and "co-efficient" effects. We find that income growth is not a key factor driving overnutrition. Urban location, higher socio-economic status and female gender are associated with high fat density diets. Our counterfactual decomposition exercise suggests that coefficient effects are predominant which suggests that even if the northeast region were to acquire the socio-demographic characteristics of the central region, large differences in the fat density of diets would persist, particularly in the lower quantiles of the intake distribution. This highlights the role of environmental, social and cultural factors in explaining the differences in dietary patterns between the two regions. The increased consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) has been identified as a key driver of excessive sugar consumption in Thailand. A tax leading to 10% increase in price of SSBs has been suggested by the WHO and other agencies to reduce sugar consumption. In the second part of the thesis, we estimate a dynamic demand model to examine the potential impact of the proposed tax on non-alcoholic beverages consumption in different segments of the population. In the absence of panel data, we construct pseudo-panels from repeated cross-sections of the Thai Socio-Economic Surveys for empirical estimation.
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