How Are SNAP Benefits Spent? Evidence from a Retail Panel

Hastings, Justine S.; Shapiro, Jesse M.

doi:10.1257/aer.20170866

Cited by 157 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 86 publications

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“…SNAP expansion during the pandemic was only available to those who are not already receiving their maximum benefits. Therefore, even though the propensity to spend benefits from food assistance programs on food is high [35], the benefits amount itself may simply not be enough to make a difference.…”

Section: Public Health Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The association between food insecurity and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic

2021

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Objective To explore the association between food insecurity and mental health outcomes among low-income Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods We conducted a survey of 2714 low-income respondents nationwide from June 29, 2020 to July 21, 2020. A proportional odds logit model was employed to estimate the associations between food insecurity and anxiety and between food insecurity and depression. Results Food insecurity is associated with a 257% higher risk of anxiety and a 253% higher risk of depression. Losing a job during the pandemic is associated with a 32% increase in risk for anxiety and a 27% increase in risk for depression. Conclusions Food insecurity caused by the pandemic was associated with increased risk of mental illness. The relative risk of mental illness from being food insecure is almost three-fold that of losing a job during the pandemic. Public health measures should focus on getting direct subsidies of food purchases to poor families, especially families with children. They should also reduce the stigma and shame that is associated with accepting charitable foods.

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Section: Public Health Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The association between food insecurity and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic

2021

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“…In effect, the labelling of grants affects the marginal propensity to consume goods related to the grant label. For example, a disproportionate amount of money was spent on eligible foods from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments (the successor to the food stamp programme) in the US relative to cash (Beatty and Tuttle, 2015;Hastings and Shapiro, 2018); winter fuel payments were used to a disproportionate extent to pay for fuel in the UK (Beatty et al, 2014); and a disproportionately high proportion of child benefits were spent on child clothing in the Netherlands (Kooreman, 2000). In the latter two cases, spending behaviour changed even though no restrictions were placed on how the payment must be spent.…”

Section: Scheme Labellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Choice Framing to Improve the Design of Agricultural Subsidy Schemes

Ocean

Howley

2021

Land Economics

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Existing agri-environment schemes have suffered from poor uptake and high burden. This article leverages behavioural economics to test choice framing in three hypothetical policy scenarios. Using a randomised survey experiment on UK farmers, we find that frames based on mental accounting and loss aversion can be used to influence agricultural policyrelated decision making. Our findings highlight the following considerations for the design of future policy: (i) whether application costs are integrated within or segregated from a subsidy matters; (ii) the labelling of agricultural schemes may affect expenditure allocation; and (iii) reference points can affect the evaluation of new scheme alternatives.

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“…Second, several studies rejected income fungibility, especially in the context of public transfers. Papers such as Beatty et al (2014), Hastings and Shapiro (2018), and Kooreman (2000) point out that the labelling of cash transfers or cash equivalents does not lead people to change spending in non-allowed locations or sectors. Kim et al ( 2020) also find little evidence that people changed their card spending in non-allowed sectors after the nationwide COVID-19 stimulus payments in Korea were disbursed.…”

Section: Methodology: Difference-in-difference-in-differences Estimationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of COVID‐19 stimulus payments on sales of local small businesses: Quasi‐experimental evidence from Korea

Choi

2022

Pacific Economic Review

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This paper examines how sales of local small businesses can be promoted through COVID-19 stimulus payments. In the beginning of April, 2020, Gyeonggi provincial government in Korea implemented a stimulus payment program worth up to 500 thousand Korean Won (416 US dollars) per person to encourage local consumption. By exploiting unique features of the stimulus payments that restricted the use of the payments in the municipality of residence at establishments accepting local currency, the paper identifies the treatment effect of the stimulus payments, taking a difference-in-difference-in-differences approach. The results suggest that the stimulus payments led to significant increases in card spending in establishments accepting local currency, relative to other establishments. The estimated overall spending effect of 4.1% persisted over three weeks, and the effect is heterogeneous across sectors. While the estimated spending effect of the stimulus payments is larger among sectors such as groceries, furniture, and beauty, sectors such as restaurants, leisure, and travel that experienced substantial sales losses did not gain much from the stimulus payments. This suggests that targeting sectors the most severely affected can be a more effective policy measure in terms of alleviating the gaps in COVID-19 induced economic losses across sectors.

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How Are SNAP Benefits Spent? Evidence from a Retail Panel

Cited by 157 publications

References 86 publications

The association between food insecurity and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic

The association between food insecurity and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic

Using Choice Framing to Improve the Design of Agricultural Subsidy Schemes

Effect of COVID‐19 stimulus payments on sales of local small businesses: Quasi‐experimental evidence from Korea

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