Introduction:
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) formally food stamps- federal initiative to reduce food insecurity for low income families and nutritional food. One in seven Americans participate in scheme (Beatty, et el 2013) , "SNAP participants have lower dietary quality than income-eligible nonparticipation counterparts" (Nguyen et al, 2014)
Two goals of SNAP: increase food security "national safety net" and nutrition; good at former question about the latter
Current debate of whether SNAPs should be reformed to promote more nutritional food consumed – especially as policy review ongoing: Trump proposed plan from 2019 introduce harvest boxes to replace SNAP (Bryan, 2018)
SNAPs only minor role in obesity (Baum …show more content…
Reform idea suggestion 1: Healthy food vouchers similar to those introduced in UK (Griffith et el 2015)
Worked for distorted consumers
Explain distorted and inframarginal consumers using standard diagram
Distorted consumers are those in which the voucher value is more than the amount they would normally spend on the targeted good so vouchers distort their consumption choices.
Inframarginal voucher is equivalent to a cash benefit er is for less than they normally spend so consumption is not distorted
Seemed to work for distorted very effectively but not infra leading to deadweight cost 40%
Surprising result for infra consumers given the recent studies of violations of fungibility: quasi-field experiment looking at drink vouchers vs meal vouchers (Abeler & Marklein 2015), Winter fuel benefits, child benefits
Either food preferences more difficult to change as so integral to current beliefs, or this paper is not as robust as first seems or needs more looking