The economics of human nutrition has changed greatly in recent years, as researchers have moved beyond supply and demand of specific foods and total calories to functional aspects of diet quality such as nutrient composition, sustainability and a variety of credence attributes. New kinds of data...

In the context of developing countries multiple pathways have been proposed from the agriculture to the nutrition sector. Policy makers have focused on selective pathways in the policy making process while ignoring the others. This paper analyzes the performance of Indian states on the...

This paper investigates the effect of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for food insecurity. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) temporarily increased SNAP benefits. We use that increase as a natural experiment to identify the causal effect of endogenous...

There is a lot of talk about making our food system more “sustainable,” and eco-consumers — those who consider environmental sustainability as an important purchasing priority — are making themselves heard. This growing consumer segment is rapidly gaining national attention for moving...

The Atkinson-Stiglitz theorem on uniform consumption taxation breaks down if prices are endogenous. This paper investigates the implications for optimal food subsidies in China. To do so, we build a general equilibrium model where low-skilled workers have a comparative advantage in the...

The Atkinson-Stiglitz theorem on uniform consumption taxation breaks down if prices are endogenous. This paper investigates the implications for optimal food subsidies in China. To do so, we build a general equilibrium model where low-skilled workers have a comparative advantage in the...

Policies and programs to improve global nutrition increasingly aim to improve diet quality through systemic change in food environments, often focusing on the availability and price of diverse food items. Almost all of the world’s governments conduct nationally representative surveys of retail...

Widespread hunger and malnutrition persist today despite considerable growth in per capita food availability. This has prompted an evolving conceptualization of food security and of mechanisms to attain and maintain food security. This chapter discusses both food security and food assistance...

This chapter studies second-best models of nutritional externalities, credit, and incomplete markets for risk, developing implications for welfare-improving government policy using primitive economic building blocks. Using a simple model of altruism wherein the rich obtain utility from the...