Estimating the Associations between SNAP and Food Insecurity,Obesity, and Food Purchases with Imperfect Administrative Measures of Participation

Administrative data are considered the “gold standard” when measuring program participation, but little evidence exists on their potential problems or implications for econometric estimates. We explore these issues using the FoodAPS, a unique data set containing two different administrative measures of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation and a survey‐based measure. We document substantial ambiguity in the two administrative measures and show that they disagree with each other almost as often as they disagree with self‐reported participation. Estimated participation and misreporting rates can be meaningfully sensitive to choices made to resolve this ambiguity and disagreement. We explore sensitivity in regression estimates of the associations between SNAP and food insecurity, obesity, and the healthy eating index. The signs are unchanged across the three measures, and the estimates are mostly not statistically different from each other. However, there are some meaningful differences in the magnitudes and levels of statistical significance of the estimates.     

The Impact of SNAP on Material Hardships: Evidence From Broad‐Based Categorical Eligibility Expansions

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 increased the SNAP participation rate by 3–5 percentage points. I also find that the expansion leads to a modest decrease in nonfood hardships, such as rent and utility delinquencies. However, the increase in SNAP enrollment does not lead to greater food spending or a reduction in food insecurity except for households with children.     

Investigating Treatment Effects of Participating Jointly in SNAP and WIC when the Treatment Is Validated Only for SNAP

The U.S. Department of Agriculture operates several food assistance programs aimed at alleviating food insecurity. We study whether participation in both participation in both SNAP and WIC alleviates food insecurity compared with participation in SNAP alone. We bound underlying causal effects by applying nonparametric treatment effect methods that allow for endogenous selection and underreported program participation when validation data are available for one program (treatment) but not the other. We estimate average treatment effects using data from the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS). FoodAPS includes administrative data to validate SNAP participation. Information on local food prices allows us to construct a food expenditure‐based monotone instrumental variable that does not require a typical instrumental variable exclusion restriction. Under relatively weak monotonicity assumptions, we identify that the impact of participating in both programs relative to SNAP alone is strictly positive, suggesting that the programs are nonredundant. This evidence can support improved design and targeting of food programs.     

Agricultural Research and Urban Poverty: The Case of China

This paper develops a framework to measure the impact of agricultural research on urban poverty. Increased investments in agricultural R&D can lower food prices by increasing food production, and lower food prices benefit the urban poor because they often spend more than 60% of their income on food. Application of the framework to China shows that these food price effects are large and that the benefits for the urban poor have been about as large as the benefits for the rural poor.     

Rural–urban differences in parental spending on children's primary education in Malawi

Using Malawian data, this paper answers two interrelated questions: are there rural–urban differences in the factors that influence the probability that a household spends or does not spend on own children's education; and are there rural–urban differences in the factors that affect educational expenditure if a household decides to spend? Computed elasticities indicate that spending on education by rural households is more sensitive to changes in income compared with urban households, suggesting that spending on education in rural areas is a luxury good. In both areas, a mother's employment and education has a larger impact on spending compared with those of a father. Urban households compared with their rural counterparts are more sensitive to the quality of access to primary schools. We find no evidence of gender bias in school spending in urban areas, but rural households exhibit bias in favour of boys.     

Does School Lunch Fill the “SNAP Gap” at the End of the Month?

This article investigates the relationship between the timing of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit payments and participation in school lunch and breakfast using the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey. An event study approach examines participation over the five‐day window before and after the SNAP payment. We find that school lunch participation decreases by 17–23 percentage points immediately after the SNAP payment among 11–18 year olds while breakfast drops by 19–36 percentage points. The decline begins the day prior to payment. We find no effects for 5–10 year olds. Models examining participation over the full SNAP month using individual fixed effects yield similar findings. Among teenagers, participation in school lunch and breakfast decline in the first two weeks of the SNAP month, increasing afterward. Non‐school meals show the opposite pattern. Overall, results indicate SNAP households rely more on school lunch and breakfast toward the end of the SNAP month.     

Income inequality and educational expenditures on children: Evidence from the China Family Panel Studies

Using the data from the China Family Panel Studies from 2010 to 2018, we find that rising income inequality causes parents to spend more on children’s education, both in school and out of school. The impact of income inequality on out-of-school expenditures is significant at intensive and extensive margins, especially for study-related tutoring participation. Furthermore, we find some empirical evidence suggesting that in response to rising inequality, mothers spend more time on children’s education and there exists a substitution effect between time and money. Further analysis suggests two potential reasons for the rising education spending: (1) a higher income inequality resulting from rising skill premium strengthens parents’ long-lasting cultural attitude towards education to higher levels, inducing them to spend more on educational investment, and (2) a higher income inequality increases the value of higher education, leading to a stronger demand for better educational opportunities, and then, more intense education competition, forcing parents to invest more in education.     

The Demand for Vices in Malaysia: An Ethnic Comparison Using Household Expenditure Data

A trivariate Tobit system is estimated to investigate the demand for vices (tobacco, alcohol, and gambling) in Malaysia. Estimation results, segmented by ethnicity, suggest that years of formal education, occupation type, and household head’s age negatively affect both the likelihood to spend and the overall amounts spent on tobacco by all Malaysians. Additionally, while higher income Malay households are more likely to spend and have higher tobacco expenditures, affluent Chinese and households of other races are more likely to spend and to spend more on smoking, drinking and gambling. Male-headed households of all races are more likely to spend and also spend more on smoking, drinking and gambling than female-led households.     

The redistributive role of government social security transfers on inequality in China

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the redistributive role of government social security transfers on inequality in China. We attempt to answer two questions. First, does inequality of after-transfer income narrow, compared to that of before-transfer income? Second, given the scale and distribution of existing government social security transfers, will a small percentage increase in the transfers narrow or widen the inequality of total income? By employing the methodologies of the Musgrave-Thin (MT) index and decomposition of the Gini coefficient of total income by its sources, we find a positive answer to the first question and a negative answer to the second question. Government social security transfers have a positive role on inequality in the sense that the Gini coefficient of after-transfer income is smaller than that of before-transfer income. However, government social security transfers have a negative role on inequality, as current inequality will go up if there is a universal increase in government social security transfers for all recipients. Of all the components of government social security transfers, formal sector pensions are most unequalizing, whereas dibao and rural pension benefits have equalizing effects on the income distribution in China.     

我国居民收入分配的格局——帕雷托分布方法

本文为确定一个时期内总体收入分配或特定部分的收入分配究竟是否趋向两极分化和比较中间收入等级和高收入等级的分配份额提供了方法。用帕雷托分布拟合我国1988年和1995年两年的居民收入分配。发现1995年和1988年相比：（1）没有明显证据表明农村居民收入存在两极分化．城镇居民在排除了收入最低的10％人口后，有明显的两极分化趋向；（2）中间等级收入份额减少。收入向高收入者集中；（3）高收入者内部收入分配差别扩大；（4）社会成员在不同的收入等级之间的流动更加容易。     

Worthiness versus Self‐Interest in Charitable Giving: Evidence from a Low‐Income,Minority Neighborhood

We examine the impact of perceived worthiness and financial self‐interest on charitable giving. Both participants and recipients come from a low‐income, predominantly African‐American community in the United States. To examine this issue, we introduce a “Comparative Dictator Game,” where participants make dictator allocations for four possible recipients, each with different characteristics. We find higher charitable giving toward more “worthy” (i.e., disabled, females who are head of household, and individuals with more children) recipients when individuals donate money to different recipients. Additionally, subjects then select their preferred recipient/allocation. When only one recipient must be selected for a donation, individuals select recipients to whom they provided smaller donations and recipients with children. The results highlight the trade‐off between a desire to engage in philanthropy, supporting those who are deserving, and financial self‐interest.     

Efficiency or equity? The effect of an exogenous agricultural commercial shock: Evidence from Manchuria in the 1930s

The adoption of high-value cash crops (HVCs) is considered an efficient way to improve farmers' productivity and welfare, although the systematic empirical evidence is limited. By exploiting an exogenous commercial shock for soybeans and microlevel rural survey data from Manchuria of China in the 1930s, where factor markets were relatively well functioning, this study investigates the influence of HVC cultivation on farmers' agricultural performance, welfare, and inequality both theoretically and empirically. We find that (i) larger farms devote a larger proportion of land to HVCs and that (ii) farmers who cultivate a larger proportion of HVCs have higher agricultural productivity, profit, net income, and expenditure. Furthermore, the adoption of HVCs lowers profit, income, and expenditure inequality by enhancing income from wages relative to land rents, which benefits households with less land.     

A Note on the Interdependence between Hypothesis Generation and Information Search in Conducting Analytical Procedures*

This study examines the linkage among the initial hypothesis set, the information search, and decision performance in performing analytical procedures. We manipulated the quality of the initial hypothesis set and the quality of the information search to investigate the extent to which deficiencies (or benefits) in either process can be remedied (or negated) by the other phase. The hypothesis set manipulation entailed inheriting a correct hypothesis set, inheriting an incorrect hypothesis set, or generating a hypothesis set. The information search was manipulated by providing a balanced evidence set to auditors (i.e., evidence on a range of likely causes including the actual cause ‐ analogous to a standard audit program) or asking them to conduct their own search. One hundred and two auditors participated in the study. The results show that auditors who inherit a correct hypothesis set and receive balanced evidence performed better than those who inherit a correct hypothesis set and did their own search, as well as those who inherited an incorrect hypothesis set and were provided a balanced evidence set. The former performance difference arose because auditors who conducted their own search were found to do repeated testing of non‐errors and truncated their search. This suggests that having a correct hypothesis set does not ensure that a balanced testing strategy is employed, which, in turn, diminishes part of the presumed benefits of a correct hypothesis set. The latter performance difference was attributable to auditors' failure to generate new hypotheses when they received evidence about a hypothesis that was not in the current hypothesis set. This demonstrates that balanced evidence does not fully compensate for having an initial incorrect hypothesis set. These findings suggest the need for firm training and/or decision aids to facilitate both a balanced information search and an iterative hypothesis generation process.     

Explaining The <Emphasis Type="Italic">Hump</Emphasis> In Life Cycle Consumption profiles

Summary  This paper documents life cycle (or age) profiles of (log) household income, durable and non-durable consumption for Dutch households after explicitly controlling for time (or business cycle) effects and birth cohort effects. We find that both measures of consumption as well as income is clearly hump shaped over the life cycle. Hence, real consumption per household seems to track income over the life cycle. This empirical regularity is hard to reconcile with basic specifications of the life cycle model. We further document life cycle profiles of demographic and labor supply variables. We argue that part, but not all, of the hump in consumption may be explained by household composition variables. Durable consumption per adult equivalent stays approximately flat until age 60 after which it drops dramatically. This phenomenon may be partly explained by a decrease in work related durable expenditures after retirement. Non-durable consumption per equivalent adult increases steadily until age 55 and stays approximately flat after that.      

Dual Job Holding and the Gig Economy: Allocation of Effort across Primary and Gig Jobs

This article explored motivations for allocating effort between “gig” and primary jobs using a sample of Amazon Mechanical Turk workers. We found that main job hour constraints, a commonly cited rationale for traditional moonlighting, were a motivation for men but not for women. Other factors affecting effort were also gender specific: Men were driven to spend more time on gig jobs to increase their incomes, while women were motivated by insecurity in their main job. Women, though not men, who were more depressed based on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale earned less in their gig economy job. Finally, higher risk aversion reduced income from gig work for men, but not women. We concluded that motivations for effort allocated between the primary and gig jobs differ from those identified in past literature as important for traditional moonlighting decisions.     

Why is There a Spike in the Job Finding Rate at Benefit Exhaustion?

Putting a limit on the duration of unemployment benefits tends to introduce a “spike” in the job finding rate shortly before benefits are exhausted. Current theories explain this spike from workers’ behavior. We present a theoretical model in which also the nature of the job matters. End-of-benefit spikes in job finding rates are related to optimizing behavior of unemployed workers who rationally assume that employers will accept delays in the starting date of a new job, especially if these jobs are permanent. This gives some workers an incentive to not immediately start working after they have found a job. Instead they wait until their benefits expire. We use a dataset on Slovenian unemployment spells to test this prediction and find supporting evidence. We conclude that the spike in the job finding rate suggests that workers exploit unemployment insurance benefits for subsidized leisure.     

Racial differences in consumer expenditure patterns, 1972–73

Summary and Conclusion In this paper, we have endeavored to analyze black-non-black differences in expenditure patterns as revealed by the 1972–73 BLS Consumer Expenditure Interview Survey Summary. Specific data shortcomings have been noted above. In addition, however, possible black-non-black differences in the propensity to misreport or withhold information may have affected the reliability of our findings. With these limitations in mind, the evidence of the survey data points to a main conclusion, namely, that although the “average” black consumer unit tended to spend a larger proportion of its after-tax income than the “average” non-black unit-just as the well-known stereotype implies-the statistical model underlying our analysis suggests that black consumer units with the same “characteristics” (after-tax income, family size, regional location, as well as the same age, education, and retired-nonretired status of family head) as the average non-black units tended to spend a smaller-not larger-proportion of their income than did the “comparable” non-black units. In addition, the model suggests that if Blacks maintained their own average characteristics but had the same “consumer behavior” as non-blacks, their APSp would rise substantially.     

Early Experience and Later Outcomes of Education: Schooling Transition Evidence from Indonesia

This paper investigates the effect of early school experience on later educational attainment. Using the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS), we find that students who repeat a grade at primary school are less likely to progress to junior high school. We also find that grade retention is associated with lower rates of transition from junior high school to senior high school. The relationship persists across years and samples. Meanwhile, the age of students when starting school and the hours they spend there have limited effects on whether they continue their schooling. We also observe that the effects of parental education and household income on the transition of students from primary school to junior high school are weakening. Given the long-term impact of grade retention, policymakers should be cautious when recommending it for underachieving children and should look for alternatives.     

Joint Tests of Signaling and Income Smoothing through Bank Loan Loss Provisions*

We examine whether and how managers use loan loss provisions to smooth income and to signal their private information about their banks' future prospects. Our paper highlights that the use of the loan loss provision to accomplish more than one objective gives rise to situation‐specific costs and benefits of manipulating the provision up or down. We hypothesize that relatively undervalued banks have greater incentives to signal their future prospects than fairly valued banks and that banks' incentives to smooth intensify as premanaged earnings deviate from norms. On the basis of these conjectures, we categorize sample banks into subgroups that are predicted to use loan loss provisions consistent with their situation‐specific incentives. This allows us to refine the research methods used in prior research to examine heterogeneous incentives. While we find evidence consistent with the use of loan loss provisions to smooth earnings, particularly when premanaged earnings are extreme, our evidence on signaling is less consistent. In particular, our signaling results depend on the introduction of an interaction term that has not been used in prior research. We also document that the intensity of smoothing (signaling) is not uniform across the sample. In addition to being a function of the incentive to smooth (signal), it also is a function of the incentive to signal (smooth).     

Cash Transfer Programs with Income Multipliers: PROCAMPO in Mexico

Cash transfer programs create multiplier effects when recipients put the money they receive to work to generate further incomes. When this is the case, the ultimate income effects are multiples of the amounts transferred. We analyze the PROCAMPO program in Mexico that was introduced to compensate farmers for the anticipated negative effect of NAFTA on the prices of basic crops. The transfer rules and the timing of the panel data collected allow unique control of biases in this impact analysis. We find that the multiplier among ejido sector recipients is in the range 1.5–2.6. Multipliers are higher for households with medium and large farms, low numbers of adults in the household, nonindigenous backgrounds, and located in the Center and Gulf regions. High multipliers reflect income opportunities that had remained unrealized due to liquidity constraints that are relaxed by the transfers. Opportunities come from the asset endowments that these households received through the land reform, particularly irrigated land, and they are enhanced by access to technical assistance.