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A growing number of studies have concluded that South Africa has one of the highest cases of HIV infections in the world. With the epidemic continuing to evolve at an alarming rate, the government of South Africa has regarded the HIV/AIDS epidemic as a developmental and socio‐economic policy issue. This study explores the impact of HIV/AIDS on food demand in South Africa. Food demand functions were estimated using time‐series data for the period 1970 to 2000.Simulation analyses were undertaken to examine “with AIDS” and “without AIDS” scenarios. Unlike previous empirical findings, which dwell on the major negative impact of HIV/AIDS on food demand patterns in South Africa, this study foreshadows a more mixed outcome of both negative and positive impacts on the demand patterns for specific food types in South Africa as consequences of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and recommends policy changes.

This study seeks to examine empirically import demand for total pulses, chickpeas and lentils in India based on the concept of unit root and cointegration.

The Stock‐Watson dynamic OLS (DOLS) model – which is robust to small sample and eliminates simultaneity bias – is used to derive the long‐run price, income and urbanisation elasticities of import demand. The data covers the period 1970‐2000.

Results indicate that real GDP, relative price and urbanisation are the key determinants of import demand for pulses in India. The estimated long‐run elasticities of import demand with respect to income (relative price) are 0.4 (−1.7) for chickpeas, 0.56 (−0.87) for lentils and 0.36 (0.00) for total pulses. The estimated long‐run elasticities of import demand with respect to urbanisation are 9.9 for chickpeas, zero for lentils and 7.2 for total pulses. The policy implications of the results are discussed.

Provides evidence that the response of import demand for pulses to key determinants differ substantially from product to product.