TY - JOUR
T1 - Estimating the Associations between SNAP and Food Insecurity, Obesity, and Food Purchases with Imperfect Administrative Measures of Participation
AU - Courtemanche, Charles
AU - Denteh, Augustine
AU - Tchernis, Rusty
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 by the Southern Economic Association
PY - 2019/7
Y1 - 2019/7
N2 - Administrative data are considered the “gold standard” when measuring program participation, but little evidence exists on their potential problems or implications for econometric estimates. We explore these issues using the FoodAPS, a unique data set containing two different administrative measures of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation and a survey-based measure. We document substantial ambiguity in the two administrative measures and show that they disagree with each other almost as often as they disagree with self-reported participation. Estimated participation and misreporting rates can be meaningfully sensitive to choices made to resolve this ambiguity and disagreement. We explore sensitivity in regression estimates of the associations between SNAP and food insecurity, obesity, and the healthy eating index. The signs are unchanged across the three measures, and the estimates are mostly not statistically different from each other. However, there are some meaningful differences in the magnitudes and levels of statistical significance of the estimates.
AB - Administrative data are considered the “gold standard” when measuring program participation, but little evidence exists on their potential problems or implications for econometric estimates. We explore these issues using the FoodAPS, a unique data set containing two different administrative measures of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation and a survey-based measure. We document substantial ambiguity in the two administrative measures and show that they disagree with each other almost as often as they disagree with self-reported participation. Estimated participation and misreporting rates can be meaningfully sensitive to choices made to resolve this ambiguity and disagreement. We explore sensitivity in regression estimates of the associations between SNAP and food insecurity, obesity, and the healthy eating index. The signs are unchanged across the three measures, and the estimates are mostly not statistically different from each other. However, there are some meaningful differences in the magnitudes and levels of statistical significance of the estimates.
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U2 - 10.1002/soej.12364
DO - 10.1002/soej.12364
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85065250292
SN - 0038-4038
VL - 86
SP - 202
EP - 228
JO - Southern Economic Journal
JF - Southern Economic Journal
IS - 1
ER -