This paper examines the impact of COVID-19 vaccination on food insecurity in the United States, using data from the Household Pulse Survey. Our primary research design exploits variation in vaccine eligibility across states over time as an instrumental variable to address the endogeneity of...

Many developing countries use food-price subsidies or price controls to improve the nutrition of the poor. However, subsidizing goods on which households spend a high proportion of their budget can create large wealth effects. Consumers may then substitute towards foods with higher...

We study the effect on nutrition of an exogenous increase in food grain subsidy in rural India resulting from a program targeting the poor. Our analysis suggests that increase in income resulting from the food price subsidy changed consumption patterns in favor of the subsidized grains and...

California has the highest Earned Income Tax (EITC) supplement to the federal EITC, with an 85% supplement rate. However, we find that despite the apparent generosity of the California EITC, there is no employment effect on less-skilled single mothers, in sharp contrast to the evidence of...

The paper provides the first assessment of: (i) America's progress in lifting the lower bound--the floor--of the distribution of real income; (ii) whether the country's largest antipoverty program, SNAP ("food stamps"), helped do so. An operational method of estimating the floor is implemented on...

The Child Tax Credit (CTC) was substantially expanded through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, making the benefit more generous, fully refundable, and more periodic. Early studies documented the positive impact of the expanded CTC on reducing poverty and food insufficiency, but there is...

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is the cornerstone U.S. anti-poverty program, typically lifting over 5 million children out of poverty each year. Targeted to low-income households with children, and only available to those who work, the EITC contains strong incentives for non-workers to...

Most antipoverty policy in the United States focuses on families with children, but efforts to assist childless adults have gained traction in recent years. We examine the impact of the Earned Income Tax Credit on the labor force outcomes of childless adults using the age-25 eligibility...

Despite significant economic growth, child development outcomes in India remain poor. Using a large-scale experiment in which randomly-selected mothers receive cash transfers for the first two years of their child's life, we examine the relationship between income and child development in the...

Iron deficiency anemia is frequent among the poor worldwide. While it can be prevented with the appropriate supplement or food fortification, these programs often do not consistently reach the poorest. This paper reports on the impact of a potential strategy to address iron deficiency anemia in...