Food Expenditures and Economic Well-Being in Early Modern England

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Abstract
The proportion of a household's budget spent on diet has commonly served as an important measure of material welfare. This paper pulls together data concerning trends in food expenditures for early modern England and draws comparisons with figures for later periods. The usefulness of wage assessments, a new source for estimating the proportion of outlays devoted to diet, is examined. The impact on food expenditures of new commodities and other dietary shifts is also explored. The findings call into question earlier estimates of the proportion of total expenditure devoted to food and drink in the pre-industrial period and the assumption that food expenditures are always inelastic.

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