Diet is important in determining health outcomes. Thus, it is important to understand the factors influencing dietary choice. Budget constraints are a common explanation for the poor dietary choices made by households in the U.S. We test this hypothesis by exploiting shocks to household budgets...

It is widely believed that healthy eating is relatively expensive whereas ‘junk food’ is relatively cheap. This has led to an assumption that poor diets and obesity are directly caused by economic deprivation. Some studies have compared the price-per-calorie of various types of food. The...