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  4. Food Assistance Environments: A Spatial Economic Analysis

Food Assistance Environments: A Spatial Economic Analysis

File(s)
Huang_cornell_0058O_11935.pdf (18.44 MB)
Permanent Link(s)
https://doi.org/10.7298/tyqp-cz27
https://hdl.handle.net/1813/114412
Collections
Cornell Theses and Dissertations
Author
Huang, Zixia
Abstract

Food assistance programs (FAPs) distribute benefits through outlets such as food pantries and authorized retailers of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). In this paper, we combine administrative datasets on food pantries and authorized SNAP retailers with a rich set of local socioeconomic indicators and geospatial information to describe the local food assistance environments for six counties in upstate New York. We find census tracts with and without pantries are not significantly different in socioeconomic indicators. While pantries and SNAP retailers are concentrated in urban areas, each pantry has fewer visits in urban areas and the aggregated monthly pantry visits are not significantly different by area urban and rural types. After using the three-category urban and rural classifications from the Census, we document pantry's heterogeneity in various aspects by its urban and rural type. Food pantry-level analysis reveals that monthly food pantry client visits are significantly positively correlated with its distance to the nearest SNAP grocery store but not with other SNAP retailer types. One additional mile driving to the nearest SNAP grocery store from a pantry is, on average, associated with a 13% increase in pantry monthly visit count. These associations are heterogeneous with respect to pantry types.

Description
58 pages
Date Issued
2023-08
Committee Chair
Barrett, Christopher
Committee Member
Hoddinott, John
Degree Discipline
Applied Economics and Management
Degree Name
M.S., Applied Economics and Management
Degree Level
Master of Science
Type
dissertation or thesis
Link(s) to Catalog Record
https://newcatalog.library.cornell.edu/catalog/16219295

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