摘要:Relative to non-food items, food tends to be cheaper in rich, as compared with poorEuropean countries. This tendency cannot be explained in terms of cost developments or foreign-trade considerations. A positive explanation proposed focuses on demand-income-supply interaction. An analysis of a cross-country price-augmented modification of Engel Law, econometrically specified, indicates that the relative price of food is related positively to the supply of food items and negatively to that of non-food items. This finding is consistent with "agricultural price scissors", and also casts a different light on the nature of economic development and structural change. JEL Codes: L11, L66, Q11 Keywords: Food, Prices