We investigate whether food price subsidies affect household nutrition using a dramatic expansion of the availability of subsidized rice in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh in the early 2000's. Households in Chhattisgarh improved their nutritional intake relative to households in districts bordering the state as the availability of subsidized rice expanded. This increase is driven by households most likely to be eligible for rice subsidies, and we do not find evidence that households least likely to be eligible changed their diet. These results differ from recent studies suggesting that food subsidies may have little effect on nutrition.

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Utilizing a novel data source from rural Bangladesh that reports individual-level food intake, we find substantial inequities in the intra-household distribution of calories and nutrients, with household heads consuming disproportionately large shares. Importantly, these results do not appear to be driven by assumptions regarding energy requirements. Due to the inequities, aggregate household-level data misclassify the nutritional status of a large share of the population. Additionally, we find that both women's disempowerment and economic stressors are associated with more inequitable calorie distributions. And we find that in households with more empowered spouses, either the spouse or the children, or both are less likely to be undernourished than in households with less empowered spouses. These findings have implications for food and nutrition program targeting, which often is based on using household-level data with strong assumptions regarding the equitable distribution of calories across household members.

The recent rapid growth in modern food retailing can be either driven by price decreases associated with efficiency gains in the supply chain over time, or it can be driven by growing consumer demand for nonprice characteristics, such as added convenience and higher quality goods. However, the price decreases associated with efficiency gains are likely to have a much larger effect on food demand and welfare in developing countries. Despite the importance of the question, few studies have empirically analyzed which driver has been more important to the spread of modern food retailing. Using a newly constructed data set of 103 developing countries, we find suggestive evidence of the expansion being primarily driven by growth in demand for nonprice characteristics. Specifically, we find that variation in demographic characteristics, such as share of the population who would benefit most from the convenience offered by modern formats, are associated with large variations in supermarket growth over the past decade. On the other hand, growth in modern food retailing appears uncorrelated with variation in the ease of developing efficient supply chains. Thus, although having the possibility to deliver large welfare gains to developing countries, the expansion of modern supermarkets likely has had much more muted effects. [EconLit citations: O100; L100; Q130]. r