Snap and Food Consumption : A Collective Household Approach with Homescan Data

I study how individual preferences and bargaining power within couples affects the impact of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Using longitudinal Homescan data, I find that wives have stronger preferences for SNAP-eligible food than husbands, and that household demand patterns for food are affected by spouse’s relative bargaining power. Failure to account for these effects leads to underestimates of older couples' total food demand, and of their implied response (at both intensive and extensive margins) to a counterfactual experiment of replacing SNAP with a cash transfer program. I find that the cash transfer can achieve the goals of SNAP to some extent