Work in Progress

WIC participant responses to vendor disqualification

Revise and Resubmit at Journal of Human Resources.
 US food assistance programs require that participants redeem benefits at authorized food retailers. In this paper, I examine how participants' use of their benefits changes if food retailers become unauthorized. Using a novel natural experiment in the WIC authorization of retailers, I find that a participant that loses access to an authorized retailer is less likely to participate in WIC and redeems a smaller share of their WIC benefits. These changes provide insight into the unintended consequences of food assistance program structure and how low-income individuals respond to changes in their food retail choice set.
Unanticipated Effects of Electronic Benefits Transfer on WIC  Stores and Redemptions: Evidence from Administrative Data on Vendors
(with Timothy KM Beatty, Marianne P Bitler, Xinzhe H Cheng, Matthew P Rabbitt)

Click for most recent draft. 
Revise and Resubmit at Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.
We evaluate the effect of the nationwide transition in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) from paper vouchers to Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards on the decisions of stores to be authorized to accept WIC benefits. We combine novel administrative data from The Integrity Profile  (data on stores participating in WIC and their WIC reimbursements) and the Store Tracking and Redemptions System  (data on SNAP-authorized vendors) with new nationwide policy data on WIC EBT implementation. Using a staggered adoption difference-in-differences approach, we find that the transition had heterogeneous and occasionally unanticipated effects across states. The number of WIC authorized independent vendors declined following WIC EBT implementation. We find no significant effect of WIC EBT implementation on WIC redemptions and no significant evidence of spillovers on to SNAP retailer authorization or redemptions. Treatment effects on authorized WIC vendors are more negative for early adopters, which may be due to learning effects or improvements in technology. Past experience with EBT implementation by financial services providers (private firms hired by states to implement WIC EBT) reduces the magnitude of negative effects of EBT implementation on store participation in WIC.
Liquidity constraints and the SNAP cycle for households with children
(with Joel Cuffey)
 We examine how shocks to liquidity change the intensity of the redemptions cycle within benefit months in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). We expand on previous research by characterizing effects on the SNAP cycle for households spanning the quantiles of the distribution of benefit redemption as well as changes in the SNAP cycle across the entire benefit month. We find that positive liquidity shocks dampen the SNAP cycle, reducing the share of benefits redeemed in the first week of the benefit month. This effect is driven by two factors: first, individuals in the top quintile of the benefit redemption distribution very early in the benefit month reduce their redemptions, and second, in the case when liquidity is restricted to food purchasing, households in the third and fourth quintiles increase their redemptions, converging the higher levels. Our results suggest that increasing households' liquidity can dampen, but not eliminate, patterns of non-smooth food expenditure among SNAP participants.
Dollar stores and SNAP authorization
(with Lauren Chenarides)
The role of food assistance in rural areas
(with Timothy KM Beatty, Alexandra E Hill, Gina Pagan, and Benjamin T King)
We estimate the propensity of dollar stores to become and remain SNAP authorized relative to other store types in the face of a regulatory change that tightened stocking requirements for SNAP authorized vendors.
Robustness of US food assistance programs to price shocks and stockouts
(with Timothy KM Beatty)

Published

"SNAP Participation Among Agricultural Workers Impacted by Seasonal Employment." December 2024. 13(3). With C. McNichols and T. Beatty. Center for Poverty and and Inequality Research, University of California.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) serves as a safety net for more than 41 million low-income families, but only about 80 percent of eligible individuals participate.[1] Among SNAP-eligible agricultural workers, take-up is likely even lower.[2] In a recent study, we explored the seasonality of agricultural employment and the extent to which its associated administrative burdens impact households’ SNAP eligibility and participation. To measure households’ attachment to SNAP, we used ‘churn’—exit and subsequent re-entry into SNAP—among Fresno County, CA households. We found a significant negative correlation between SNAP churn and agricultural employment seasonality.
Understanding the relationship between SNAP churn and the seasonality of agricultural employment would likely improve access to the safety net for a vulnerable population, as well as reduce SNAP implementation costs for both households and the state.
“U.S. Nutrition Assistance Program Responses to COVID-19.” 2020. With T. Beatty. ARE Update 23(5): 5-8. Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics, University of California.
We review the three largest nutrition assistance programs in the United States—SNAP, NSLP, and WIC— and discuss how these programs can help address the food security challenge posed by the COVID-19 crisis. We will also provide a summary of policy changes made to date in these programs, and a snapshot of where policy may be headed. We conclude with some considerations for policymakers on effective policy changes particular to this situation.
“Changes to Nutrition Programs in the 2018 Farm Bill.” 2019. With T. Beatty. ARE Update 22(3): 9–11. Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics, University of California.
Nutrition programs comprise 76% of Farm Bill spending. These programs target families, children, and other vulnerable populations, and have historically enjoyed wide bipartisan support. A broad literature documents positive health and well-being effects on program participants. Changes in the most recent Farm Bill and in proposed rules by the USDA will affect eligibility requirements, restricting the population of individuals who qualify for food stamps. We synthesize these changes and consider likely consequences.
“Can CalFresh Cut Costs and Better Serve California’s Agricultural Counties?” 2018. With A. Hill. ARE Update 21(5): 9-11. Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics, University of California.
Higher rates of employment are associated with more CalFresh caseload terminations, which then increase applications from previous recipients. Reapplications are costly to the state and participants. These effects are largest in California counties with high agricultural employment.
“Political ecology and decolonial research: co-production with the Inupiat in Utqiagvik.” 2020. With L. Zanotti, C. Carothers, C. Apok, S. Huang, and J. Coleman. Journal of Political Ecology 27(1): 43-66.
Environmental social science research designs have shifted over the past several decades to include an increased commitment to multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary team-based work that have had dual but complementary foci. These address power and equity in the substantive aspects of research, and also to adopt more engaged forms of practice, including decolonial approaches. The fields of political ecology, human geography, and environmental anthropology have been especially open to converge with indigenous scholarship, particularly decolonial and settler colonial theories and research designs, within dominant human-environmental social science paradigms. Scholars at the forefront of this dialogue highlight the ontological (ways of knowing), epistemological (how we know), and institutional (institutions of higher education) transformations that need to occur in order for this to take place. In this article we contribute to this literature in two ways. First, we highlight the synergies between political ecology and decolonial scholarship, particularly focusing on the power dynamics in research programs and historical legacies of human-environmental relationships, including those of researchers. Second, we explore how decolonial research pushes political ecologists and other environmental social scientists to not only consider adopting international and local standards of working with, by and for Indigenous Peoples within research programs but how this work ultimately extends to research and education within their home institutions and organizations. Through integrating decolonized research practices in the environmental social sciences, we argue that synthesizing multiple knowledge practices and transforming institutional structures will enhance team-based environmental social science work to improve collaboration with Indigenous scientists, subsistence practitioners, agency representatives, and sovereign members of Indigenous communities.