There is growing debate about whether consumer subsidies related to nutrition programs should be more flexible. Additional flexibility increases consumer welfare, but may hinder efforts towards achieving nutrition goals. We study how consumers would respond to subsidy designs with different...

Growing evidence suggests that pocketbook considerations influence voting behavior in the U.S. and other developed countries and that incumbents can use targeted government benefits to win voter support. It remains unclear whether the general relationship between government spending and...

Delegation of administrative authority is commonly thought to involve a tradeoff between the discretion necessary for bureaucratic effectiveness and democratic responsiveness. In many contexts, however, discretion and responsiveness go hand-in-hand: Street-level bureaucrats may adapt their...

The research presented examines the role of private versus public food assistance programs in alleviating food shortages among poor households. First, multinomial probit models are used to examine which factors affect four alternative food assistance choices poor households make: 1) to use Food...

This paper investigates how Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) eligibility and benefits affect food expenditures by exploiting the California 'cash-out' policy, which made Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients ineligible for SNAP. Using the Consumer Expenditure Survey, we...

The global food price shock of 2006-2008 has particularly affected poorer strata of populations in several developing countries. In Egypt and some other countries it has put food subsidy schemes to the test. This paper develops two comparable computable general equilibrium models for Egypt and...

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...

1-in-7 Americans received benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in 2011, an all-time high. We analyze changes in program enrollment over the past two decades, quantifying the contributions of unemployment and state policy changes. Using instrumental variables to address...

This article examines whether expanding Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) eligibility reduces material hardships of low‐income households. During the Great Recession, many states expanded the income threshold of eligibility for SNAP. I show that expansions in eligibility...

Between 2010 and 2017, 42 U.S. states added work requirements as a food assistance eligibility criterion for Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents (ABAWDs). Another U.S. public assistance program, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), provides food assistance without a work requirement, along with...