IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/aaea15/205770.html

The Evolving Role of Food Sourced Outside the Home on Diets in the U.S.: 1977-2010

Author

Listed:
  • Smith, Travis A.
  • Lin, Biing-Hwan
  • Coats, Ellen

Abstract

Food away from home (FAFH) is known to be of poorer nutritional quality. Given the increased prominence of FAFH over the past 35 years, some policymakers and health advocates seek to further regulate this market. This policy approach is only as strong as its expected impact. Using an individual fixed effects approach, we first document how FAFH (both fast food and restaurants) has had a relatively stable negative impact on dietary quality over 1977-2010. Yet, overall levels of dietary quality have increased over 20% during this period. To this end, we use an Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition approach to understand how changes in FAFH choices and observable characteristics of individuals have impacted the trajectory of dietary improvements. We find that increased consumption of FAFH plays a very small role in explaining changes in dietary quality (about 4%) as compared to changes in demographics (e.g., age and race/ethnicity -- about 5%) and human capital (e.g., education -- about 7.5%). We attribute the substantial residual, or unexplained, improvement to changes in unobservable factors (e.g., consumer preferences, the food environment, and overlapping nutrition policy initiatives).

Suggested Citation

  • Smith, Travis A. & Lin, Biing-Hwan & Coats, Ellen, "undated". "The Evolving Role of Food Sourced Outside the Home on Diets in the U.S.: 1977-2010," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205770, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aaea15:205770
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.205770
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/205770/files/FoodSourcesDiets_TS.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.205770?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fortin, Nicole & Lemieux, Thomas & Firpo, Sergio, 2011. "Decomposition Methods in Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 1, pages 1-102, Elsevier.
    2. Lin, Biing-Hwan & Guthrie, Joanne F., 2012. "Nutritional Quality of Food Prepared at Home and Away From Home, 1977-2008," Economic Information Bulletin 142361, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    3. DiNardo, John & Fortin, Nicole M & Lemieux, Thomas, 1996. "Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: A Semiparametric Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1001-1044, September.
    4. Mancino, Lisa & Todd, Jessica & Lin, Biing-Hwan, 2009. "Separating what we eat from where: Measuring the effect of food away from home on diet quality," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 557-562, December.
    5. Beatty, Timothy K.M. & Lin, Biing-Hwan & Smith, Travis A., 2013. "The Effects of Age and Birth Cohort on Dietary Quality in the United States," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 151426, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    6. Gregory, Christian & Smith, Travis & Wendt, Minh, 2011. "How Americans Rate Their Diet Quality: An Increasingly Realistic Perspective," Economic Information Bulletin 291943, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    7. Timothy K. M. Beatty & Biing-Hwan Lin & Travis A. Smith, 2014. "Is Diet Quality Improving? Distributional Changes in the United States, 1989-2008," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 96(3), pages 769-789.
    8. Todd, Jessica E., "undated". "Changes in Eating Patterns and Diet Quality Among Working-Age Adults, 2005-2010," Economic Research Report 262214, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    9. Variyam, Jayachandran N. & Smith, Travis A., 2010. "Americans Are More Realistic About the Quality of Their Diets," Amber Waves:The Economics of Food, Farming, Natural Resources, and Rural America, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, pages 1-1.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Smith, Travis A. & Valizadeh, Pourya & Lin, Biing-Hwan & Coats, Ellen, 2019. "What is driving increases in dietary quality in the United States?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 1-1.
    2. Thomas Y. Mathä & Alessandro Porpiglia & Michael Ziegelmeyer, 2014. "Wealth differences across borders and the effect of real estate price dynamics: Evidence from two household surveys," BCL working papers 90, Central Bank of Luxembourg.
    3. Kobus, Martyna & Kapera, Marek & Maasoumi, Esfandiar, 2024. "Gap in many dimensions: Application to gender," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    4. Leone Leonida & Marianna Marra & Sergio Scicchitano & Antonio Giangreco & Marco Biagetti, 2020. "Estimating the Wage Premium to Supervision for Middle Managers in Different Contexts: Evidence from Germany and the UK," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(6), pages 1004-1026, December.
    5. Töpfer, Marina, 2017. "Detailed RIF decomposition with selection: The gender pay gap in Italy," Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences 26-2017, University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences.
    6. Sergio Longobardi & Margherita Maria Pagliuca & Andrea Regoli, 2018. "Can problem-solving attitudes explain the gender gap in financial literacy? Evidence from Italian students’ data," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 52(4), pages 1677-1705, July.
    7. Koen Caminada & Kees Goudswaard & Jingqi Liu & Chen Wang & Jinxian Wang, 2025. "Decomposition of Changes in Elderly Poverty across 16 European Countries: 2005-2022," LIS Working papers 882, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    8. Doss, Cheryl R. & Catanzarite, Zachary & Baah-Boateng, William & Swaminathan, Hema & Diana Deere, Carmen & Boakye-Yiadom, Louis & Suchitra, J.Y., 2018. "Do men and women estimate property values differently?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 75-86.
    9. El Moctar LAGHLAL, 2018. "Decomposition of urban-rural inequality in Mauritania," LEO Working Papers / DR LEO 2587, Orleans Economics Laboratory / Laboratoire d'Economie d'Orleans (LEO), University of Orleans.
    10. Manuel Arellano & Stéphane Bonhomme, 2017. "Quantile Selection Models With an Application to Understanding Changes in Wage Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 1-28, January.
    11. Calvo,Paula Andrea & Lopez-Calva,Luis-Felipe & Posadas,Josefina, 2015. "A decade of declining earnings inequality in the Russian Federation," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7392, The World Bank.
    12. Sloczynski, Tymon, 2013. "Population Average Gender Effects," IZA Discussion Papers 7315, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Yokoyama, Izumi & Kodama, Naomi & Higuchi, Yoshio, 2019. "Inequality through wage response to the business cycle–Evidence from the FFL decomposition method," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 87-98.
    14. Vincenzo Carrieri & Apostolos Davillas & Andrew M. Jones, 2023. "Equality of opportunity and the expansion of higher education in the UK," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 69(4), pages 861-885, December.
    15. Gregory, Christian & Rahkovsky, Ilya & Anekwe, Tobenna D., 2014. "Consumers’ Use of Nutrition Information When Eating Out," Economic Information Bulletin 174796, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    16. Fitzenberger Bernd & Sommerfeld Katrin, 2016. "A Sequential Decomposition of the Drop in Collective Bargaining Coverage," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 236(1), pages 37-69, February.
    17. Eva Militaru & Madalina Ecaterina Popescu & Amalia Cristescu & Maria Denisa Vasilescu, 2019. "Assessing Minimum Wage Policy Implications upon Income Inequalities. The Case of Romania," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-20, May.
    18. Philippe Van Kerm & Seunghee Yu & Chung Choe, 2016. "Decomposing quantile wage gaps: a conditional likelihood approach," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 65(4), pages 507-527, August.
    19. Fernando Rios-Avila & Barry T. Hirsch, 2014. "Unions, Wage Gaps, and Wage Dispersion: New Evidence from the Americas," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(1), pages 1-27, January.
    20. Ramos, Raul & Sanromá, Esteban & Simón, Hipólito, 2022. "Collective bargaining levels, employment and wage inequality in Spain," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 375-395.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:aaea15:205770. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.