Inside the War on Poverty: The Impact of Food Stamps on Birth Outcomes

Douglas Almond, Hilary Williamson Hoynes and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach
Additional contact information
Douglas Almond: Columbia University and NBER
Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach: Northwestern University and NBER

The Review of Economics and Statistics, 2011, vol. 93, issue 2, pages 387-403

Abstract: This paper evaluates the health impacts of a signature initiative of the War on Poverty: the introduction of the modern Food Stamp Program (FSP). Using variation in the month FSP began operating in each U.S. county, we find that pregnancies exposed to FSP three months prior to birth yielded deliveries with increased birth weight, with the largest gains at the lowest birth weights. We also find small but statistically insignificant improvements in neonatal mortality. We conclude that the sizable increase in income from FSP improved birth outcomes for both whites and African Americans, with larger impacts for African American mothers. © 2011 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations View citations in EconPapers (2) Track citations by RSS feed

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/REST_a_00089 link to full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Inside the War on Poverty: The Impact of Food Stamps on Birth Outcomes (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tpr:restat:v:93:y:2011:i:2:p:387-403

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://mitpress.mit. ... me.tcl?issn=00346535

Access Statistics for this article

The Review of Economics and Statistics is edited by Daron Acemoglu, George J. Borjas, Dani Rodrik and Julio J. Rotemberg

More articles in The Review of Economics and Statistics from MIT Press
Series data maintained by Karie Kirkpatrick ().