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Retailers have been using promotion as a differentiation strategy that influences consumers' expenditures and their shopping basket budgetary allocation. This study assessed the effect of retail promotions on total shopping basket expenditure and determined whether promotions provoke a reallocation of the shopping budget. The analysis was performed on a chain of supermarkets in Catalonia, Spain using a consumer scanner data set from Kantar Worldpanel for 2017. The methodological approach had two steps: prediction of the effect of promotion on household expenditures using an expenditure regression model and estimation of the promotion own- and cross-effect using the censored Exact Affine Stone Index. Promotion had a positive own-effect and mostly a negative asymmetric cross-effect, implying a small but significant budget reallocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social safety nets are expanding in Sub-Saharan Africa. While proponents perceive them as a means to combat poverty and vulnerability, opponents view them as wasteful use of scarce public resources and do not significantly overcome poverty. Previous studies have primarily focused on assessing the impact of these policies on current poverty levels, with insufficient evidence available regarding their impact on future poverty, which deserves equal attention. We drew on the Tanzanian 2017–18 Household Budget Survey, comprising 9,463 households to evaluate the impact of productive social safety net (PSSN) program on households' vulnerability to poverty (VP). The VP was evaluated using vulnerability as expected poverty (VEP), whereas the impact was estimated using Instrumental Variable (IV) method. We found that PSSN reduces household VP by 13.4%, suggesting that it is an effective policy instrument for reducing poverty and vulnerability. Notably, the estimated impacts were greater for households enrolled in conditional cash transfer (CCT) and public work (PW) combined, suggesting that a package of CCT and PW is likely to have a more substantial impact within the realm of social safety nets. Our findings offer evidence in favor of policies that promote the broader expansion of social safety nets as anti-poverty policy instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adults with a learning disability who receive social care are legally entitled to a personal budget. Personal budgets were introduced to promote choice and control in support. Individual Service Funds were introduced as a flexible way that personal budgets can be managed by a provider while maintaining choice and control for the individual. Individual Service Funds have been shown to improve quality of life for individuals and efficiency in support. Despite this, only 20% of local authorities offer them to adults with a learning disability, demonstrating the need for resources to be developed to support their delivery. This protocol described a co-production study with key stakeholders to develop and refine Individual Service Fund resources. Our primary aim is to co-produce two actionable resources: to support development, delivery, consistency, and sustained provision of ISFs; and to support uptake and optimal use of ISFs by recipients. We also aim to user-test and evaluate these resources with three Local Authorities. The result of this study will be two resources that will support the uptake of Individual Service Funds for adults with a learning disability that will be freely available online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aims to analyze the trends in food price in Brazil with emphasis on the period of the Covid-19 pandemic (from March 2020 to March 2022). Data from the Brazilian Household Budget Survey and the National System of Consumer Price Indexes were used as input to create a novel data set containing monthly prices (R$/Kg) for the foods and beverages most consumed in the country between January 2018 and March 2022. All food items were divided according to the Nova food classification system. We estimated the mean price of each food group for each year of study and the entire period. The monthly price of each group was plotted to analyze changes from January 2018 to March 2022. Fractional polynomial models were used to synthesize price changes up to 2025. Results of the present study showed that in Brazil unprocessed or minimally processed foods and processed culinary ingredients were more affordable than processed and ultra-processed foods. However, trend analyses suggested the reversal of the pricing pattern. The anticipated changes in the prices of minimally processed food relative to ultra-processed food, initially forecasted for Brazil, seem to reflect the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the global economy. These results are concerning as the increase in the price of healthy foods aggravates food and nutrition insecurity in Brazil. Additionally, this trend encourages the replacement of traditional meals for the consumption of unhealthy foods, increasing a health risk to the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]