Estimating the Food Price and Income Elasticities in Tehran Urban Households

The aim of this research is to estimate the food price and income elasticities in urban household of Tehran province. For this purpose, the data of household food items in Tehran province used by different groups of household consumer goods are gathered and then handled as a combination of linear almost ideal demand system based on seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) during 2004- 2012. In this paper, the behavior of price and income elasticities has been studied in urban households. The overall results represent that cereals, dairy products and oils group are a part of essential commodities. Meats, fish and marine animals are luxury goods. Cross-price elasticities, in term of absolute value, are less than one in most cases. Auto-price elasticity of fish and marine animals is more than one unit. In other word, this group is a kind of elastic goods