Leng Ganxiao, Qiu Huanguang, Filipski Mateusz
Agricultural Trade Promotion Center, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Beijing City, China.
Liaoning University, Shenyang City, China.
Health Econ. 2025 Apr;34(4):677-698. doi: 10.1002/hec.4925. Epub 2025 Jan 5.
Urban environments are thought to improve food security, by offering enhanced access to markets and income opportunities. Yet this idea is hard to test empirically due to an abundance of confounding factors and selection issues. This study leverages a resettlement program in China to provide the first quasi-experimental estimate of city life on food consumption and nutrition among low-income households. Lottery-determined timing of resettlement enables causal inference. We base our empirics on a 3-year panel and a range of difference-in-differences and matching methodologies. We find that those who were resettled to towns significantly increased both food consumption and diet variety, with increased intake of several macro- and micro-nutrients. Diet quality mostly improved, but we also found signs of over-consumption, notably of carbohydrates. Our evidence further suggests that our impacts are primarily due to improved market access. This stands in contrast to recent literature that finds little or no effect of living environments on food consumption. Instead, we reveal a significant impact of urban environments in shaping diets, bolstering the notion that supply-side channels do matter in some contexts.
城市环境被认为可以通过增加市场准入和收入机会来改善粮食安全。然而，由于存在大量混杂因素和选择问题，这一观点很难通过实证来检验。本研究利用中国的一个安置项目，首次对城市生活对低收入家庭食品消费和营养的影响进行了准实验估计。抽签决定的安置时间使得能够进行因果推断。我们的实证分析基于一个三年期面板数据以及一系列双重差分法和匹配方法。我们发现，那些被安置到城镇的人显著增加了食品消费和饮食种类，几种宏量营养素和微量营养素的摄入量也有所增加。饮食质量大多有所改善，但我们也发现了过度消费的迹象，尤其是碳水化合物。我们的证据进一步表明，我们所观察到的影响主要是由于市场准入的改善。这与最近的文献形成了对比，后者发现生活环境对食品消费几乎没有影响。相反，我们揭示了城市环境对饮食形成有显著影响，支持了在某些情况下供给侧渠道确实重要的观点。
