How Food Banks Use Markets to Feed the Poor

Canice Prendergast

Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2017, vol. 31, issue 4, 145-62

Abstract: A difficult issue for organizations is how to assign valuable resources across competing opportunities. This work describes how Feeding America allocates about 300 million pounds of food a year to over two hundred food banks across the United States. It does so in an unusual way: in 2005, it switched from a centralized queuing system, where food banks would wait their turn, to a market-based mechanism where they bid daily on truckloads of food using a "fake" currency called shares. The change and its impact are described here, showing how the market system allowed food banks to sort based on their preferences.

JEL-codes: D44 D82 L31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.31.4.145
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.31.4.145 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrie ... 5HNwsXAN_EuYGCtSQnq_ (application/zip)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrie ... PuSTjS2y7mxF6PjcwPeT (application/zip)

Related works:
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:jecper:v:31:y:2017:i:4:p:145-62

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Perspectives is currently edited by Enrico Moretti

More articles in Journal of Economic Perspectives from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().