Little Cash, Little Carry: Liquidity Constraints and Missing Out on Bulk Discounts in Tanzania.
Using high-frequency data on households' item-level purchases from Tanzania, we show that liquidity constraints keep the poor from using bulk discounts consistently. On average, households save roughly 20% during the 'flush' days of the month, which comes from buying in bulk, and the poorest save ov...
| Published in: | Journal of Development Studies Vol. 62; no. 4; pp. 582 - 604 |
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| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Apr2026
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=192478333&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 192478333 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00220388 JDS jtl: Journal of Development Studies issn: 00220388 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Apr2026 vid: 62 iid: 4 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 192478333 10.1080/00220388.2025.2533904 ppf: 582 ppct: 22 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T db: hlh ui: 192478333 – @attributes: type: P db: hlh ui: 192478333 tig: atl: Little Cash, Little Carry: Liquidity Constraints and Missing Out on Bulk Discounts in Tanzania. aug: au: Olabisi, Michael Persaud, Alexander affil: Agricultural Food and Resource Economics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA Department of Economics, University of Richmond, Richmond, Virginia, USA su: Tanzania Poverty Wealth inequality Food consumption Consumer behavior Consumption (Economics) Wholesale prices sug: subj: Poverty Wealth inequality Food consumption Consumer behavior Consumption (Economics) Tanzania Wholesale prices keyword: Bulk discounts poverty Bulk discounts poverty ab: Using high-frequency data on households' item-level purchases from Tanzania, we show that liquidity constraints keep the poor from using bulk discounts consistently. On average, households save roughly 20% during the 'flush' days of the month, which comes from buying in bulk, and the poorest save over 30%. Relaxing liquidity constraints through wage income or higher wealth leads to lower prices paid overall and a lower drop when flush. We estimate that failing to use bulk discounts costs households at the first quartile of wealth an additional 1% of their spending on food relative to households at the third quartile. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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