Publications
Drought and Fruit and Vegetables Production in California
Unintended Doses: How Livestock Insurance Fuels Antibiotic Use on Chinese Hog Farms?
Emotional Shocks and Consumer Spending
Working Papers
Access, Accuracy, and Avoidance: Household Responses to Air Pollution Forecasts
We study how access to and accuracy of public forecasts shape household avoidance of air pollution. Using national household transaction data and daily PM2.5 measurements, we exploit the staggered rollout of EPA AirNow forecasts and wind-driven variation in pollution. We find that higher pollution reduces in-person shopping, while forecast access strengthens this response and shifts shopping to days before higher pollution. Households curtail shopping more sharply on polluted days when recent forecasts have been more accurate. Moving from the mean to the 75th percentile of forecast accuracy yields 29 percent of the shopping-related exposure reduction associated with introducing forecast access.
Trends and Disparities in WIC-Authorized Store Density in the United States
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides nutrition assistance to low-income pregnant women, infants, and children up to age 5. Because WIC benefits are redeemable only at authorized retailers, program effectiveness depends on store availability. Systematic analysis of WIC store density disparities is limited. Using NielsenIQ’s TDLinx database linked to county-level child population data, we examined trends in WIC store density from 2016 to 2023 across 3,143 US counties, calculating stores per 1,000 children aged 0 to 5 years and assessing disparities by urbanization, minority share, and per-capita income. We found that WIC-authorized stores among major food retailers declined 8.4% nationally, while SNAP-authorized stores increased 12.8%. WIC-authorized store density decreased from 2.44 to 2.24 stores per 1,000 children aged 0-5 years. Rural counties experienced declines nearly five times faster than metropolitan areas. Counties with higher minority populations and lower incomes consistently exhibited lower WIC store density. These patterns suggest growing challenges to WIC access in rural and underserved communities. Policies reducing administrative and financial barriers may be critical for strengthening the WIC retail network.
Drought and Farm Consolidation: Long-Run Evidence from U.S. Agriculture []
In this study, we examine the long-run impacts of drought on farm consolidation in the U.S. crop sector from 1982–2022. Using four decades of county-level data and a long-difference design, we find that cumulative drought exposure significantly increases farm size, primarily through the exit of smaller farms. Effects are strongest in rainfed regions and among field crops, while specialty crop areas show weaker or negative responses to drought. These findings highlight drought as a structural force in U.S. agriculture and underscore the need for targeted climate adaptation policies.
California Drought, Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Prices, and Consumer Welfare []
California produces more than a third of all vegetables and two-thirds of all fruits and nuts in the United States and is the largest producer of over fifty fruits, vegetables, and tree nuts. Meanwhile, California agriculture faces important challenges due to sustained drought with increasing frequency and severity across the state since 2011. This article estimates the effect of the recent California drought on the retail prices of fresh fruits and vegetables (FFV) using panel data models. We build a dataset comprising detailed information on FFV prices and the drought. Specifically, we construct a monthly panel price index for fresh fruits and vegetables using retail scanner data and obtain California’s county-level historical drought data from the United States Drought Monitor. In our estimation, we account for the heterogeneous effects of the drought across products and space. Our main finding is that the drought had a positive and significant effect on FFV prices. This effect is generally larger on fruits than vegetables and is robust to alternative measures of drought and model specifications. Furthermore, we find that the drought’s impacts on production and imports are among the significant determinants of its overall effect on prices.
Does the Recent Food Price Inflation Differ by Store Format? []
Recent spikes in food prices have raised significant economic concerns in the United States. Understanding how food price inflation varies across store formats provides valuable insights into consumer behavior and the strategies retailers employ during economic downturns. In this study, we use retail scanner data to construct price indices by store format for various food product groups, allowing us to estimate differences in the rates of price changes across stores. We then estimate a structural store-choice model to examine how these differential rates of price changes affect consumers’ preferences for different store formats. Our findings reveal that food price inflation rates vary significantly by store format, with nontraditional stores generally experiencing lower inflation rates than traditional stores across most food categories. These differential price changes also influence consumer store and product choices.
Moral Hazard in Agricultural Insurance: Evidence from a Non-Voluntary Sow Insurance Program in China []
Agricultural insurance has not yet lived up to its full potential despite its apparent benefits to agricultural producers. Moral hazard is suspected to be a major obstacle to the adoption of agricultural insurance, especially livestock insurance. In this study, we take advantage of a government-supported, non-voluntary sow insurance program in China and examine whether farmers being aware of having insurance coverage leads to their hazardous behaviors. We estimate these impacts by using an endogenous treatment effects model which controls for endogeneity in our treatment variable. Our results are robust and suggest that farmers’ awareness of their insurance enrollment led to statistically and economically significant differences in their sow mortality rates. Therefore, our results demonstrate the presence of hazardous behavior.
Work in Progress
Distributional Food Inflation and the Nutritional Quality of Grocery Purchases
Sports Betting Legalization and Consumer Spending