This paper develops a conceptual framework that can explain why economic development goes along with increases in body weight and obesity rates. We first introduce the concept of novelty consumption, which refers to an increase in food availability due to trade or innovation. Then we study how...

Participating in and presenting gifts at funerals, weddings, and other ceremonies held by friends and neighbors have been regarded as social norms in many parts of the world for thousands of years. However, due to the reciprocal nature of gift giving, it is more burdensome for the poor to take...

Maternal sugar consumption in utero may have a variety of effects on offspring. We exploit the abolishment of the rationing of sweet confectionery in the UK on April 24, 1949, and its subsequent reintroduction some months later, in an era of otherwise uninterrupted rationing of confectionery...

In response to the dramatic rise in childhood obesity, particularly among low income individuals, federal nutrition assistance programs have come under scrutiny. However, the vast majority of this research focuses on the direct relationship between these programs and child health, while little...

Recent validation studies show that survey misreporting is pervasive and biases common analyses. Addressing this problem is further complicated, because validation data are usually convenience samples and access is restricted, making them more suitable to document than to solve the problem. I...

This paper provides evidence for informational spillovers within urban slums in Chandigarh, India. I identify three groups, a treatment group, a neighboring spillover group, and a non-adjacent pure control group. Mothers of children (aged 3-6 years) enrolled in government day-care centers are...

In response to concerns over the vulnerability of the young in the wake of Indonesia's 1997-1998 economic crises, the Government of Indonesia implemented a supplementary feeding program to support early childhood nutritional status. This paper exploits heterogeneity in duration of program...

This paper investigates a previously unexplored behavioral response to taxation: whether smokers compensate for higher cigarette taxes by enrolling in food stamps. First, we show theoretically that increases in cigarette taxes can induce food stamp take-up of non-enrolled, eligible smoking...

The distribution of income within the household is found to matter for the allocation of resources towards nutrition. Rural Mexican households do not pool income, nor do they attain a Pareto-efficient allocation of resources. In contrast to what is commonly done in the literature, I do not...

Although many programs redistribute resources in the U.S., two program were central in providing a safety net for those facing hardship during the Great Recession: the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which grew to 47.7 million people in January 2013 - or 15.1 percent of all...