We show that observed behaviour can be rationalised by the fact that the shadow price of home-cooked food, which accounts for the fact that cooking takes time, has risen relative to the price of ready-to-eat food.
We evaluate an intervention targeting early life nutrition and well-being for households in extreme poverty in Northern Nigeria. The intervention leads to large and sustained improvements in children’s anthropometric and health outcomes, including an 8% reduction in stunting four years post-intervention.
The last few days have seen free school meals in England rocket to the front of the papers, as many MPs, campaign groups and businesses have lined up behind Marcus Rashford’s proposals to extend free school meal vouchers through the school holidays until Easter next year. While the motion was defeated last week, the Labour party has promised to bring the motion again – and several Conservative MPs have already indicated that it may receive a more sympathetic hearing the second time around.
Soda taxes aim to reduce excessive sugar consumption. We assess who are most impacted by soda taxes. We estimate demand using micro longitudinal data covering on-the-go purchases, and exploit the panel dimension to estimate individual specific preferences. We relate these preferences and counterfactual predictions to individual characteristics and show that soda taxes are relatively effective at targeting the sugar intake of the young, are less successful at targeting the intake of those with high total dietary sugar, and are unlikely to be strongly regressive especially if consumers benefit from averted internalities.
Reports suggest that the government is planning on introducing new measures to tackle obesity, including a ban on television advertising of food and drink products that are high in fat, sugar or salt before the 9pm watershed.
We document that within-individual variation in food choices is substantial and has potentially important consequences for nutrition, and hence well-being.
