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Heterogeneous impacts of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program on food insecurity

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  • Deb, Partha
  • Gregory, Christian A.

Abstract

We study the effects of SNAP participation on food insecurity allowing for a priori unspecified heterogeneous treatment effects. Using finite mixture models, we identify a low food security class comprising almost 60% of the samples for whom SNAP participation increases the probability of no food insecurity by 14–37 percentage points across specifications and decreases the probability of very high insecurity by 14–35 percentage points. We find that SNAP participation has a small and statistically insignificant effect on food insecurity for the remaining 40% of the population. By examining posterior probabilities of class membership, we discover that individuals in the latter class are less likely to report unmet food needs and live in larger households where more consumption smoothing may be possible.

Suggested Citation

  • Deb, Partha & Gregory, Christian A., 2018. "Heterogeneous impacts of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program on food insecurity," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 55-60.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:173:y:2018:i:c:p:55-60
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2018.09.011
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    Cited by:

    1. Hoshino Tadao & Yanagi Takahide, 2022. "Estimating marginal treatment effects under unobserved group heterogeneity," Journal of Causal Inference, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 197-216, January.
    2. Oscar A. Martínez-Martínez & Araceli Ramírez-López & Ricardo Velázquez Leyer, 2022. "Food Well-Being in Older Adults: Effects of a Universal Non-contributory Pension in Mexico," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 160(2), pages 523-539, April.

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