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.     

The Contribution of the School Environment to the Overall Food Environment Experienced by Children

Despite the important role of schools in the food environment faced by children, most research examining access to healthy food has focused on the retail sector. We create a database of school menus and the nutritional information about each item on the menu from nearly all school districts in the United States to examine the influence of the school‐based food environment on the nutritional choices of children. Using the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS), we find that, holding constant the neighborhood retail food environment, exposure to healthier meals at school increases the healthfulness of foods acquired by children throughout the day.     

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.     

WIC Participation and Relative Quality of Household Food Purchases: Evidence from FoodAPS

We examine the effect of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) on the quality of household food purchases using the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey (FoodAPS) and propensity score matching. A healthy purchasing index (HPI) is used to measure nutritional quality of household food purchases. WIC foods explain the improvement in quality of food purchases, not self‐selection of more nutrition‐conscious households into the program. The improvement in purchase quality was driven entirely by WIC participating households who redeemed WIC foods during the interview week. There was no significant difference between WIC participants who did not redeem WIC foods and eligible nonparticipants. In this sample, there is no evidence that lack of access to clinics has adverse effects on participation nor is there evidence that HPI depends on supermarket access. A supervised machine learning process supports our main conclusion on the importance of WIC foods.     

Examining the Performance of the South African Economics Departments, 2005‐2014

This study examines the teaching and research activities of 17 Economics Departments in 2005‐2014 by consulting the information from each university's faculty prospectus, publication in accredited local and international peer‐reviewed journals, Economic Society of South Africa conference participation, Economic Research Southern Africa working paper series and the National Research Foundation. The results indicate there is big variation in the departments’ teaching and research activities during the period. Nonetheless, research output increased, in particular publication in accredited international journals in both absolute and proportional terms.     

The Effect of SNAP and School Food Programs on Food Security,Diet Quality,and Food Spending: Sensitivity to Program Reporting Error

There is an extensive research literature on the effects of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on food‐related outcomes which has shown somewhat mixed results but generally favorable effects. However, most of the research has used data sets whose information on SNAP participation is gathered from responses on household surveys, and such responses are subject to reporting error. This study uses the National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey data set to examine the effect of reporting error on food‐related outcomes, for that data set contains information on SNAP participation gathered from government administrative records. Our analysis shows that the degree of reporting error is small and has little effect on the estimated impact of participation in the SNAP program on food security, diet quality, and food spending. A supplemental analysis of the effect of school food programs likewise shows no difference in using survey or administrative data in the analysis.     

In honor of Michael Grossman

This symposium is to celebrate the accomplishments of Michael Grossman on the occasion of his retirement from teaching. The articles selected are all written by Mike's former students and colleagues, and were presented in a session at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Southern Economic Association. Each of the articles celebrate Mike's scholarly legacy in developing the field of health economics.     

Introduction: Advances in the Study of the Economics of Terrorism

Although the study of the economics of terrorism dates back to 1978, work on this topic was sporadic until 2001. Since the four hijackings on September 11, 2001, there have been many contributions both theoretical and empirical in this area of study. The purpose of this article is twofold: (i) to orient the reader to this area of study, and (ii) to introduce the five articles of this special symposium. These articles address diverse aspects of the economics of terrorism including the demise of terrorist groups, natural disasters and terrorism, cost of living and terrorism, terrorism and stock‐bond returns, and terrorism and piracy.     

Misreporting of Government Transfers: How Important Are Survey Design and Geography?

Recent studies linking household surveys to administrative records reveal high rates of misreporting of program receipt. We use the FoodAPS survey to examine whether the findings of these studies of general household surveys using one or two states generalize to a survey with a narrow focus and across many states. First, we study how reporting errors differ from other surveys. We find a lower rate of false negatives (failures to report true receipt) in FoodAPS, likely partly due to the shorter recall period of FoodAPS. Misreporting varies with household characteristics and between interviewers. Second, we examine geographic heterogeneity in survey error to assess whether we can extrapolate from linked data from a few states. We find systematic differences between states in unconditional error rates but no evidence of substantial differences conditional on common covariates. Thus, extrapolating error rates across states may yield more accurate receipt estimates than uncorrected survey estimates.     

Incentive contracts,corporate governance,and privatization funds in Romania

This paper analyzes the governance problems of the Romanian Private Ownership Funds (POFs), critical institutions both in the privatization process and in the future ownership and control structure of the Romanian economy. Although the POFs share similar problems with mass privatization intermediaries elsewhere, the satisfactory performance of Romanian funds faces additional obstacles due to the bureaucratic character of their initial organization, the continuing involvement of the state in their governance and operation, and the complexity of the tasks that they are supposed to accomplish. The POFs are charged not only with governing companies and managing their portfolios, but with part of the task of selling the remaining state shareholdings. We review instruments of corporate governance that could potentially induce them to perform these tasks, and conclude that the standard practices are likely to be seriously deficient in the case of the Romanian POFs. One possibility which has not yet been adopted is an incentive payment scheme for POF executives. We analyze the difficulties of implementing such a scheme with a multi-task principal-agent model, and propose a practical solution to the incentive design problem. We argue that, while some such method is certainly necessary to induce the POFs to perform their assigned tasks even approximately, it is by no means sufficient to enliven the Romanian privatization process. The author is grateful for a research grant from the National Council for Soviet and East European Research, received through the Center for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University. Encouragement from Ralph W. Pfouts, discussion with Alexander Dyck, and comments from Roman Frydman on an earlier draft are gratefully acknowledged.     

Economics,Insurance, and Flood Hazards

This article introduces the Symposium Economics, Insurance, and Flood Hazards. We provide background on the magnitude of recent extreme weather events and subsequent flooding in terms of lives and property damage. After a brief background of the National Flood Insurance Program and its renewal, we describe the papers contributed to the symposium and their relationship to the challenges described by the U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO).     

Small firms and economic growth in europe

Economic activity in manufacturing industries moved away from large firms toward small firms in many Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries during the last two decades. However, the speed of this industrial transformation process has varied considerably across countries. This paper investigates the consequences of lagging behind in this restructuring process in manufacturing. A sample of 14 manufacturing industries in 13 European countries has been constructed for this purpose. It is found that, on average, the employment share of large firms in 1990 has a negative effect on output growth in the subsequent four-year period. This provides support for specific policies introduced during the 1980s in European countries stimulating small enterprises.This study benefitted from a grant by the Research Centre for Economic Policy (OCFEB), Faculty of Economics, Erasmus University, Rotterdam.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this articles:
Asia's Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization. By Alice M. Amsden.
Fisheries development
Economics of Fishery Management in the Pacific Islands Region. Edited by H. Campbell; K. Menz and G. Waugh.
Regional co-operation
ASEAN Industrial Co-operation: Future Perspectives and an Alternative Scheme. Edited by Chee Peng Lim and Jang-Won Sun.
China's Social Economic Zones
The Political Economy of China's Special Economic Zones. By George T. Crane.
Australia's relations with Asia
Australia and the Northeast Asian Ascendancy. By Ross Garnaut.
Economic success in East Asia
Achieving Industrialization in East Asia. Edited by Helen Hughes.
Paradoxes in PNG economy
Growth, Structural Change and Economic Policy in Papua New Guinea: Implications for Agriculture. By Frank G. Jarrett and Kym Anderson.
History of banking in East Asia
The Hong Kong Bank in the Period of Imperialism and War, 1895–1918. Volume II of the History of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. By Frank H. H. King with David J. S. King and Catherine E. King.
Mercantilism vs. classical economics
National Economics. By Alejandro Lichauco.
Thai economic history
Economic Development of Thailand, 1850–1950: Response to the Challenge of the World Economy. By Sompop Manarungsan.
Predictable catastrophe
City on the Rocks: Hong Kong's Uncertain Future. By Kevin Rafferty.
Mouldering Pearl: Hong Kong at the Crossroads. By Felix Patrikeef.
Development of Singapore's economy
Management of Success: The Moulding of Modern Singapore. Edited by Kernial Singh Sandhu and Paul Wheatley.
Economics of food
Food Price Policy in Asia: A Comparative Study. Edited by Terry Sicular.
Development economics
Proceedings of the World Bank Annual Conference on Development Economics 1989.     

Does Increased Funding for Homeless Programs Reduce Chronic Homelessness?

This article tests whether programs that provide housing assistance to homeless people can reduce chronic homelessness. I analyze data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for 130 communities across the United States over the period 2005 to 2007. Because the amount of federal money allocated to a community to combat homelessness may depend on unobserved characteristics of that community, I estimate a fixed‐effects model that estimates the effect of new federal homeless funding on chronic homelessness. I find that the first‐year cost of moving one chronically homeless person into permanent supportive housing is $55,600. An analysis of new funding to specific types of homeless programs indicates that programs that provide long‐term housing and services to homeless people with disabilities drives this relationship.     

An Empirical Study of Suicide Terrorism: A Global Analysis

This paper provides the first venue‐based empirical investigation of the number and lethality of suicide terrorist attacks on a global scale. For 1998–2010, we assemble a data set of 2448 suicide terrorist incidents, drawn from the three main terrorist event databases, i.e., International Terrorism: Attributes of Terrorist Events (ITERATE), the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), and RAND. Our data set distinguishes between domestic and transnational suicide terrorist missions. For the quantity of suicide terrorism, we apply zero‐inflated negative binomial panel (country‐year) estimation for country‐specific variables and negative binomial panel estimation for attack‐specific variables. We also present linear regression panel estimations for the impact of suicide terrorism in terms of casualties per attack. Economic, political, and military variables, at times, differentially influenced the two kinds of suicide terrorism. A host of policy conclusions are drawn from the empirical findings.     

Governance, Regulation and Privatization in the Asia-Pacific Region

Book reviewed
Taktoshi Ito and Anne. O. Kreuger, (eds), Governance, Regulation and Privatization in the Asia-Pacific Region. Chicago and London: National Bureau of Economic Research and University of Chicago Press, 2004. Pp. 480. ISBN: 0 226 38679 1. Hardback US$95.00. Reviewed by Robert Millward University of Manchester     

中国经济效益理论研究的历史回顾与分析

文章追溯了经济效益理论从萌芽到发展、成熟的整个过程，分析了马克思《资本论》中所体现的经济效益理论萌芽，研究了中国经济类最核心杂志《经济研究》创刊以来所发表的大部分论述经济效益理论和评价类的文章，剖析了经济效益理论的形成过程，为今后的经济效益研究指明了方向。     

The Scholarly Status of Blacks in the Economics Profession: Have the National Economic Association and the Review of Black Political Economy Mattered?

This paper considers whether the National Economic Association and its journal the Review of Black Political Economy have enhanced the scholarly status of black economists. A bibliometric analysis reveals that while the typical black economist has never published in the Review of Black Political Economy, the share of black economists publishing in the Review of Black Economy approximates the share of all articles published on the economic and political economy of race by black economists, and the share of articles published in the Review of Black Political Economy by black economists appears higher than typical journals in economics—particularly for black economists employed at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. We also find that similar to other economics journals non-black economists dominate the share of published articles, and publications in the Review of Black Political Economy appear to be consistent with Lotka’s Law of scientific productivity suggesting that the journal is a standard outlet for research no different from any other science journal. Our results imply a plausible counterfactual that if the National Economic Association and Review of Black Political Economy did not exist, the scholarly status of blacks in the economics profession would have been lower than currently observed.     

SNAP and Paycheck Cycles

It is well documented that individuals do not spend the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits smoothly over the month after receipt. Rather, recipients spend a disproportionate share of benefits at the beginning of the benefit month. This has costs for recipients and stores. There is also evidence that other income streams, such as Social Security and paychecks, are not spent smoothly. The presence of these other income streams may bias estimates of the effects of this SNAP cycle on consumption for working SNAP beneficiaries and those who receive other government benefits. We use data from United States Department of Agriculture's National Household Food Acquisition and Purchase Survey to explore how the SNAP cycle is affected by accounting for these other income streams. We find suggestive evidence that the cycle is more pronounced for workers who are paid on a weekly or monthly basis, but little evidence that cycles in other income streams mitigate or exacerbate the SNAP cycle.     

Flood Fatalities in the United States: The Roles of Socioeconomic Factors and the National Flood Insurance Program

Flooding is the most frequent disaster type among all severe weather events in the United States. Over the 20‐year period from 1996 to 2015, a total of 107,743 floods resulted in 1563 fatalities and over $167 billion in damages. Climate models suggest that the risk of major flooding will increase in the coming years. In this article, we provide new analysis of the life‐saving role of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) using county‐level data for the United States over the years 1996–2015. The integrated view of the physical, social, economic, and political elements of disaster vulnerability guides the empirical analysis. Our analysis indicates that people most affected by floods are those who have weaker economic and social bases; lower education levels and poor housing quality increase flood vulnerability. We also find that local government spending on public safety and welfare significantly reduces overall flood vulnerability. Importantly, our estimates present new evidence that ex ante floodplain management and mitigation efforts required for participation in the NFIP have played a vital role in reducing flood‐related fatalities.