About
This is the teaching blog for Nutrition 238, a graduate course in the principles of economics used to analyze agricultural, food and nutrition choices around the world. To see each post, click on the category of interest under the top right menu showing what’s here. —> —>
The course is offered at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, in the spring as described in the syllabus for NUTR 238, and in the fall for our MNSP students as described in the syllabus for NUTB 238. The fall version is taught online with a short residency (hence NUTB, for blended learning). Both semesters have similar content, which is designed to be attractive and accessible to students with zero previous experience or interest in economics, while providing depth on agriculture, food markets & nutrition for those with experience in general economics. Students can enroll individually in standalone courses like this one via Courses@Tufts. To see what it’s like, course evaluations for the last 3 years are here for the small MNSP version (always online) in Fall 2020, 2021 and 2022, and the large MS-PhD version (usually taught in person) during in Spring 2020, 2021 and 2022.
This blog is for me and class participants to share fun stuff about the economics of food. Interested visitors might also want to check out the site on US Food Policy maintained by Prof. Parke Wilde.
The Friedman School has an exceptionally strong and diverse collection of faculty, staff and students interested in all aspects of human nutrition, agriculture and food – all on our website.
–Will Masters
http://sites.tufts.edu/willmasters
PS, we’ll get back soon enough to in-person gatherings:
EconO’Food potluck 2019 (pre-Covid) My school office…
In the meantime, see you online!

Twitter (click photo for full profile)
- Very proud of @jkwallingford & @elenamartinez24 for new #FoodPricesForNutrition paper on price spikes during #COVID… https://t.co/Cl9KAvAzym about 4 months ago
Job listings
- Friedman careers center postings
- Friedman alumni group on LinkedIn
- Nutrition-related jobs (ASN)
- Devex (US and international)
- Economics-related jobs (search “food”)
- Policy-related jobs (APPAM)
- Boston-area intl. dev. jobs & news (BNID)
- Food policy jobs in the US (Daybook)
- Intl. ag and nutrition jobs+news (Ag2Nut)
- Intl. development jobs (search “food”)
- Global health & poverty (80,000 hrs)
Helpful newsletters
- Food Fix – insider scoops on US policy
- Boston Network for Intl. Dev.
- Solutions Journalism – stories of success
- Politico – US food & ag policy
- Ag2nut – international nutrition
- Chicago Council – global food & ag
- Farm Policy News – from Univ. of Illinois
- The Counter – ‘Fact and friction in American food’
- Food dive – specialist journalism about the food industry
- Food Safety News – nasty stuff to avoid
- Dani Nierenberg’s Food Tank
- Jeremy Cherfas – food culture
- Gro Intel – deep dives into data
- FERN’s ag insider news
- Econofact – US economic policy
- Rudd Center – obesity policy
- David Allison – obesity research
- ANH Academy – mostly Africa & Asia
Data & resources
- JPAL how-to research resources
- WB DIME data analysis handbook
- Grad school advice (for econ, but applicable to others)
- My list of resources (experimental)
- USDA Econ. Res. Service (ERS) data
- USDA Food & Nutr. program data
- NCCOR – all US food-health data
- World Bank data
- FAO Statistics (FAOSTAT)
- UNICEF statistics
- WHO – child heights and weights
- WHO – global obesity and BMI
- UN system data
- HDX – humanitarian crises
- The dataverse
- IHSN – household surveys
- IPUMS – accessible data (incl. IDHS)
- Euromonitor – branded foods (library subscription)
- Gro Intelligence data
- UNCTAD – international trade
Favorite blogs on ag, food & health etc.
- Noah Smith – economics of everything
- Ethan Mollick – AI in higher ed
- Ugo Gentilini – social protection
- Parke Wilde – food policy
- Econofact – US econ policy
- Jess Fanzo – food systems
- Marc Bellemare – ag & food econ
- Chris Blattman – dev econ
- Jayson Lusk – ag & food econ
- Diane Coyle – economics books
- Marion Nestle – food politics
- Tamar Haspel – food & ag
- World Bank – impact evaluation
- BITSS – research methods
- Susan Dynarski – education policy
Archives
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