Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Oshkosh, WI 54901, USA.
Econ Hum Biol. 2013 Mar;11(2):134-47. doi: 10.1016/j.ehb.2012.04.002. Epub 2012 Apr 15.
Recent proposals argue that a fast food tax may be an effective policy lever for reducing population weight. Although there is growing evidence for a negative association between fast food prices and weight among adolescents, less is known about adults. That any measured relationship to date is causal is unclear because there has been no attempt to separate variation in prices on the demand side from that on the supply side. We argue that the minimum wage is an exogenous source of variation in fast food prices, conditional on income and employment. In two-stage least-squares analyses, we find little evidence that fast food price changes affect adult BMI or obesity prevalence. Results are robust to including controls for area and time fixed effects, area time trends, demographic characteristics, substitute prices, numbers of establishments and employment in related industries, and other potentially related factors.
最近有观点认为，征收快餐税可能是降低人口体重的有效政策手段。尽管越来越多的证据表明快餐价格与青少年体重之间存在负相关关系，但成年人的情况则知之甚少。由于迄今为止尚未有人试图将需求方面的价格变化与供应方面的价格变化区分开来，因此目前尚不清楚任何已测量到的关系是否具有因果关系。我们认为，最低工资是快餐价格变化的一个外生来源，这取决于收入和就业情况。在两阶段最小二乘法分析中，我们几乎没有发现快餐价格变化会影响成年人的 BMI 或肥胖患病率的证据。结果在包括地区和时间固定效应、地区时间趋势、人口特征、替代价格、相关行业的机构数量和就业以及其他潜在相关因素的控制变量后仍然稳健。
