Nutritional quality of food imports in Caribbean small islands. Evidence from the French West Indies

This paper investigates the determinants of the nutritional quality of food imports in the French West Indies (Guadeloupe and Martinique), from 1995 to 2016. We use an original dataset reconciling data at the six-digit level of the Harmonized System with data from the French food composition table (Ciqual, 2017). We estimate the impact of several socioeconomic factors and food processing on per-capita imports of key markers of the nutrition transition: kilocalories, animal protein, saturated fat, and sugar. Results suggest that an increase in the per-capita GDP in the French West Indies increases per-capita imports in terms of kilocalories and saturated fat. Retail expansion is shown to contribute to the nutrition transition via increasing per-capita imports of our nutrition outcomes (except for sugar). We also show that processed and ultra-processed foods are associated with higher per-capita imports of our nutrition outcomes. Finally, the impact of the female labor force participation rate is found to be statistically insignificant.