Back in the day, name brand chocolate - Coffee Crisp, Mars bars - made up a small percentage of the average trick-or-treat haul. I remember getting candy apples, rockets, tootsie pops, suckers, caramels, "boiled sweets" (hard sugar candy), raisins and the dread black cat toffee. Nothing - in terms of quality or in terms of quantity - like my kids pull in on October 31st. So why are Hallween hauls bigger and better than ever?
Searching for an economic explanation of this phenomenon, I immediately thought about relative prices. Perhaps the candy haul has gone up because candy prices have gone down? To test this theory, I downloaded information on the price of "sugar and confectionaries", coffee and tea (on the grounds that coffee and cocoa are not dissimilar commodifies), and all goods.
As the chart shows, changes in relative prices cannot explain humungous Halloween hauls. The price of food has increased more rapidly than the price of other goods over the past 40 years. It's easy to explain why. Other consumer goods are produced in whole or in part in China or other low wage countries, reducing their manufacturing costs. Additional price reduction have come from changes in technology, supply chain management and retail distribution. These changes have affected agriculture, too, but not to the same extent.
Sugar and confectioneries have increased more rapidly in price than other food items. It could be that the price index is not be fully capturing quality changes associated with the replacement of candies made from flavoured sugar with luscious chocolate and nut confections. Though it's more likely to be just a matter of supply and demand.
If prices can't explain rising Halloween hauls, perhaps incomes can?
Median incomes of families with children rose steadily throughout the boom of the 2000s, so it could well be that - even though candy isn't any cheaper than it used to be - people are better able to afford it. If incomes drive generosity, however, the era of rising candy hauls may be over.
Another factor is that children are an ever smaller share of the population. As I noted over on Economy Lab, in 1961, fully one third of Canada’s population was made up of children under 15: one trick-or-treater for every two adults. Now the “too old for trick-or-treating” demographic outnumber the ghosts and goblins by more than four to one. There's an expression in China to describe the situation of the children of the one-child generation: "six wallets, one mouth". Four grandparents and two parents all contribute financially towards a single child. I'm not sure that this entirely explains increased Halloween hauls - if the number of children in a community fall below a critical level, trick-or-treating seems to dry up and disappear.
Alternatively, perhaps increased Halloween hauls have little to do with the kind of structural and demographic trends micro-economists love to think about. Perhaps it's a biz-skool type phenomenon: Halloween is a marketing opportunity. It's a chance for manufacturers of name brand chocolates to introduce a new generation of candy connosieurs to their offerings.
This makes sense, but begs the question: if this is such a good idea, why weren't candy makers doing it in the 1960s and 1970s?
Perhaps they hadn't thought of it.
Perhaps improved supply chain management and greater concentration in the retail industry means that candy manufacturers have the ability to get precisely the right quantity of Halloween treat-sized into the stores at precisely the right time - something they couldn't do 20 or 40 years ago.
Perhaps our trust in things home made, and things made by small independent manufacturers, has eroded. Candy apples, for example, were once a Halloween staple - but with the wide circulation of urban myths about razor blades in candy apples and similar stories, they became verboten.
The origin of these urban myths is uncertain - for all the fear, it is hard to find any documented cases of candy tampering.
But fear of things home made is certainly good for people who sell processed goods.
Less time in household production = more money spent on market goods? When did confectionary firms start producing mini-chocolate bars -all I can remember from being a kid is dairy milk samples in instant chocolate milk containers.
Posted by: Linda Welling | October 31, 2011 at 01:11 PM
Linda -
"Less time in household production = more money spent on market goods?"
Absolutely! Can you imagine someone now giving out home made candy apples? But wouldn't that also tend to increase the perceived value of things home made?
I don't know when mini-chocolate bars arrived - sometime between when I stopped trick-or-treating and my kids started.
Posted by: Frances Woolley | October 31, 2011 at 01:18 PM
could be that you're in a more affluent neighborhood now than when you were a kid...it's common for city kids to be bussed to wealthy suburbs on halloween...
Posted by: rjs | October 31, 2011 at 02:35 PM
I don't remember mini-chocolate bars in the 1990s in Scotland (there were some mini-chocolates, but sweets, oranges and cookies were the norm) so I'd guess they were introduced in the 1980s in the US, assuming a rough 10-year lag between any change in the US and a corresponding change in the Scottish Highlands.
Posted by: W. Peden | October 31, 2011 at 02:47 PM
First, I think you need to disentangle the issues of market economy goods from the greater spending made on Halloween. Processed food sold in the market economy is a secular trend far broader than Halloween; grocery stores now seem to sell more food-in-a-box than basic foodstuffs.
Second, I think that regarding Halloween you are in fact begging the question by assuming that the explanation must be supply-based. Yes, Halloween is obviously a much bigger deal now than when I was a child (if your house isn't tricked out like a graveyard and festooned with skeletons and similar rubbish, many kids will assume you aren't participating and won't even knock.) Yes, marketing has surely played a role in the invention of the Halloween decoration industry. But that can't be the whole explanation, because Easter has not seen as great a rise in status and that's not for want of trying on the part of industry.
Posted by: Phil Koop | October 31, 2011 at 03:44 PM
rjs: "could be that you're in a more affluent neighborhood now than when you were a kid" - actually, no. But it is true that I live in a neighbourhood now that's better for treat-or-treating, that is, there are shorter drive ways.
Phil: "First, I think you need to disentangle the issues of market economy goods from the greater spending made on Halloween."
Fair enough.
"But that can't be the whole explanation, because Easter has not seen as great a rise in status and that's not for want of trying on the part of industry."
Industry has a huge problem with "moveable feasts", that is, holidays that move around from year to year, like Easter does. Halloween is nicely predictable.
Industry has a problem with religious holidays - it's harder to sell Easter non-Christians. Halloween is pretty much divorced from it's Christian origins (Halloween was originally part of "All souls day", which preceeds "All saints day").
Also, holidays need a good upbeat message and a clear target demographic. What's the message of Easter? Jesus Christ died to save mankind. That whole death thing is a bit of a downer. The pagan celebration-of-spring rabbit-and-egg thing has a lot more potential - now if only it could shed all that other baggage.
On the rise of Halloween more generally - see my post in Economy Lab and (to some extent) last year's somewhat more grumpy post about cross-town trick-or-treaters.
Posted by: Frances Woolley | October 31, 2011 at 04:18 PM
Halloween as we know it is really a North American phenomenon. It's influenced by Irish and Scottish tradition but the current spin is home-grown. Call it marketing or call it cultural shift, but people want to dress up, have an excuse for a party and let the kids have fun.
The rise of the mini chocolate bar is part a reaction to those poisoned treats scares. Candy bars have known and familiar ingredients and the packaging is well-sealed and can't be resealed. Caramels and Rockets. for example, have rolls that can be easily unwrapped and rewrapped. An Oh Henry that has been tampered with is obvious. So it's parents moving in a common direction.
Chocolate manufacturers have definitely used it as a marketing opportunity. Those mini packs are samples and are obviously advertising. But as I said, they are familiar and trusted brands. That moved in an filled an obvious gap.
Easter is also a holiday that refuses to shed its religious background. Also most Protestant churches just don't have the party celebration culture over Easter than other churches like the Greek Orthodox do. The Greeks do Easter in a big, big way. It is a FEAST. The Protestant churches that strongly influence North America? Not so much.
Posted by: Determinant | October 31, 2011 at 05:10 PM
One thing to note is the price of Hallowe'en compared to other family entertainments. We spent about $20 and had name-brand candy for 50 kids. Adding money for costumes and a few mostly home-made decorations we had a family night (OK, the teenager took off with her friends) for about the cost of going out to the movies. The way I figure it is what we are spending on is nostalgia + 4 hours fun for the kids and grandparents. (I am including the pumpkin carving in the fun category because it was - this year.) Better than a re-release of The Lion King in 3D.
Posted by: Chris J | November 01, 2011 at 06:53 AM
Chris J - good point, it would be interesting to add the price of entertainment to the graph. My sense is that things like pro sports have increased a lot in relative terms, though the price of going to the movies seems to have levelled off a little bit due to the spread of alternatives e.g. downloading.
Posted by: Frances Woolley | November 01, 2011 at 07:36 AM
Determinant,
I would imagine that the Orthodox party feeling at Easter is connected to the fasting beforehand. Since Protestants don't generally do fasting, there's no that same feast feeling.
Posted by: W. Peden | November 01, 2011 at 07:55 AM