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Food demand and cash transfers: A collective household approach with Homescan data

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  • Lin, Xirong

Abstract

I study how individual preferences and bargaining power within older couples affects the impact of cash transfers on food demand. Using longitudinal Homescan data, I find that wives have stronger preferences for food than husbands, and that household demand patterns for food are affected by spouse’s relative bargaining power. Failure to account for these effects leads to underestimates of older couples’ total food demand, and of their implied response (at both intensive and extensive margins) to a counterfactual experiment of a cash transfer program with equivalent benefit size as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). I find that the cash transfer can achieve the goals of SNAP to some extent.

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  • Lin, Xirong, 2023. "Food demand and cash transfers: A collective household approach with Homescan data," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 233-259.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:212:y:2023:i:c:p:233-259
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2023.05.001
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Collective household models; Resource shares; Food demand; Cash transfers; Scanner data; SNAP;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs

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