How Are SNAP Benefits Spent? Evidence from a Retail Panel

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hastings, Justine; Shapiro, Jesse M.
• 署名单位: Brown University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20170866
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 3493-3540
• 关键词: gasoline prices; Food stamps; program; consumption; assistance; CHOICE; IMPACT; cash

摘要

We use a novel retail panel with detailed transaction records to study the effect of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on household spending. We use administrative data to motivate three approaches to causal inference. The marginal propensity to consume SNAP-eligible food (MPCF) out of SNAP benefits is 0.5 to 0.6. The MPCF out of cash is much smaller. These patterns obtain even for households for whom SNAP benefits are economically equivalent to cash because their benefits are below their food spending. Using a semiparametric framework, we reject the hypothesis that households respect the fungibility of money. A model with mental accounting can match the facts.