IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/ajagec/v92y2010i4p1165-1180.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do Food Stamps Contribute to Obesity in Low-Income Women? Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979

Author

Listed:
  • Maoyong Fan

Abstract

This article estimates the effects of food stamp benefits on obesity, overweight and body mass index of low-income women. My analysis differs from previous research in three aspects. First, we exploit a rich longitudinal dataset, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, to distinguish between full-time and part-time participation. Second, instead of making parametric assumptions on outcomes, we employ a variety of difference-in-difference matching estimators to control for selection bias. Third, we estimate both short-term (one-year participation) and long-term (three-year participation) treatment effects. We find little evidence that food stamps are responsible for obesity in female participants. Copyright 2010, Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Maoyong Fan, 2010. "Do Food Stamps Contribute to Obesity in Low-Income Women? Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1165-1180.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:ajagec:v:92:y:2010:i:4:p:1165-1180
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ajae/aaq047
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Darius Lakdawalla & Tomas Philipson, 2002. "The Growth of Obesity and Technological Change: A Theoretical and Empirical Examination," Working Papers 0203, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago.
    2. Alberto Abadie & Guido W. Imbens, 2002. "Simple and Bias-Corrected Matching Estimators for Average Treatment Effects," NBER Technical Working Papers 0283, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. A. Smith, Jeffrey & E. Todd, Petra, 2005. "Does matching overcome LaLonde's critique of nonexperimental estimators?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 125(1-2), pages 305-353.
    4. James J. Heckman & Hidehiko Ichimura & Petra E. Todd, 1997. "Matching As An Econometric Evaluation Estimator: Evidence from Evaluating a Job Training Programme," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(4), pages 605-654.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lorenzo Almada & Ian McCarthy & Rusty Tchernis, 2016. "What Can We Learn about the Effects of Food Stamps on Obesity in the Presence of Misreporting?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 98(4), pages 997-1017.
    2. Charles J. Courtemanche & Joshua C. Pinkston & Christopher J. Ruhm & George L. Wehby, 2016. "Can Changing Economic Factors Explain the Rise in Obesity?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(4), pages 1266-1310, April.
    3. Chad D. Meyerhoefer & Muzhe Yang, 2011. "The Relationship between Food Assistance and Health: A Review of the Literature and Empirical Strategies for Identifying Program Effects," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 33(3), pages 304-344.
    4. MacEwan, Joanna P. & Smith, Aaron & Alston, Julian M., 2016. "The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, energy balance, and weight gain," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 103-120.
    5. Mays, Matthew & Smith, Travis A., 2018. "How Does SNAP Participation Affect Rates of Diabetes?," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 273905, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    6. Courtemanche, Charles & Pinkston, Joshua C. & Stewart, Jay, 2015. "Adjusting body mass for measurement error with invalid validation data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 275-293.
    7. Maoyong Fan & Yanhong Jin, 2015. "The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Childhood Obesity in the United States: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997," American Journal of Health Economics, MIT Press, vol. 1(4), pages 432-460, Fall.
    8. Susan Chen & Le Wang, 2021. "SNAP participation, diet quality, and obesity: robust evidence with estimation techniques without external instrumental variables," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(3), pages 1641-1667, September.
    9. Li, Xun & Wang, Rui, 2016. "Spatial Convergence of US Obesity Rates and Its Determinants," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235617, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    10. Maoyong Fan & Yanhong Jin, 2015. "The Effects of Weight Perception on Adolescents’ Weight-Loss Intentions and Behaviors: Evidence from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-29, November.
    11. Lee, Ji Yong & Nayga Jr, Rodolfo M. & Jo, Young & Restrepo, Brandon J., 2022. "Time use and eating patterns of SNAP participants over the benefit month," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    12. Hilary Hoynes & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, 2015. "US Food and Nutrition Programs," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume 1, pages 219-301, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Just, David R. & Gabrielyan, Gnel, 2018. "Influencing the food choices of SNAP consumers: Lessons from economics, psychology and marketing," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 309-317.

    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. Dettmann, E. & Becker, C. & Schmeißer, C., 2011. "Distance functions for matching in small samples," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 55(5), pages 1942-1960, May.
    2. Dettmann, Eva & Becker, Claudia & Schmeißer, Christian, 2010. "Is there a Superior Distance Function for Matching in Small Samples?," IWH Discussion Papers 3/2010, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    3. Hugo Ñopo, 2008. "Matching as a Tool to Decompose Wage Gaps," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(2), pages 290-299, May.
    4. Richard Blundell & Lorraine Dearden & Barbara Sianesi, 2003. "Evaluating the impact of education on earnings in the UK: Models, methods and results from the NCDS," IFS Working Papers W03/20, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    5. John C. Ham & Xianghong Li & Patricia B. Reagan, 2004. "Propensity Score Matching, a Distance-Based Measure of Migration, and the Wage Growth of Young Men," Working Papers 2004_3, York University, Department of Economics.
    6. Hans Lööf & Anders Broström, 2008. "Does knowledge diffusion between university and industry increase innovativeness?," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 73-90, February.
    7. Steven Lehrer & Gregory Kordas, 2013. "Matching using semiparametric propensity scores," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 13-45, February.
    8. Roberto ESPOSTI, 2014. "To match, not to match, how to match: Estimating the farm-level impact of the CAP-first pillar reform (or: How to Apply Treatment-Effect Econometrics when the Real World is;a Mess)," Working Papers 403, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
    9. Eva Dettmann & Jutta Günther, 2013. "Subsidized Vocational Training: Stepping Stone or Trap? Assessing Empirical Effects Using Matching Techniques," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 149(IV), pages 405-443, December.
    10. Sourafel Girma & David Paton, 2006. "Matching estimates of the impact of over‐the‐counter emergency birth control on teenage pregnancy," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(9), pages 1021-1032, September.
    11. Kuhn, Dieter, 2011. "Delayering and Firm Performance: Evidence from Swiss firm-level Data," Working papers 2011/02, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    12. Alberto Abadie & Guido W. Imbens, 2008. "On the Failure of the Bootstrap for Matching Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(6), pages 1537-1557, November.
    13. Dettmann, Eva & Günther, Jutta, 2009. "Subsidized Vocational Training: Stepping Stone or Trap? An Evaluation Study for East Germany," IWH Discussion Papers 21/2009, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    14. Hohberger, Jan & Kruger, Heidi & Almeida, Paul, 2020. "Does separation hurt? The impact of premature termination of R&D alliances on knowledge acquisition and innovation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(6).
    15. Aradhna Aggarwal, 2010. "Impact evaluation of India's ‘Yeshasvini’ community‐based health insurance programme," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(S1), pages 5-35, September.
    16. Esposti, Roberto, 2015. "To match, not to matchm how to match: Estimating the farm-level impact of the 2005 CAP-first pillar reform," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211625, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    17. Maoyong Fan & Yanhong Jin, 2015. "The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Childhood Obesity in the United States: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997," American Journal of Health Economics, MIT Press, vol. 1(4), pages 432-460, Fall.
    18. Andrea Pufahl & Christoph R. Weiss, 2009. "Evaluating the effects of farm programmes: results from propensity score matching," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 36(1), pages 79-101, March.
    19. González-Uribe, Juanita & Reyes, Santiago, 2021. "Identifying and boosting “Gazelles”: Evidence from business accelerators," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(1), pages 260-287.
    20. Agnes Quisumbing & Neha Kumar, 2011. "Does social capital build women's assets? The long-term impacts of group-based and individual dissemination of agricultural technology in Bangladesh," Journal of Development Effectiveness, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 220-242.

    More about this item

    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:oup:ajagec:v:92:y:2010:i:4:p:1165-1180. 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: Oxford University Press (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.