William A. Masters

Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy, Tufts University

William A. Masters

Welcome

Hi – thanks for visiting.  I am a Professor at Tufts University, in the Friedman School of Nutrition with a secondary appointment in the Department of Economics.  Timeline of links below summarize recent work, or click links for details of research funding, my school page, or fun experiments like music playlists.  Background is described in my AAEA Fellow’s bio and, more colorfully, in my ANH career journey.

I also maintain a separate page for my project on Food Prices for Nutrition, developing price indexes to track the most affordable ways to meet dietary needs. Through that project we help national governments and development agencies measure change in agricultural supply and the food environment, guiding intervention to improve each population’s access to healthy, sustainable diets. In August 2023, I summarized our global results for a U.S. audience at the National Academies that you watch in this 20-min video.

For news and event announcements I now use LinkedIn and am experimenting with Bluesky, but have not deleted old things on Twitter and Mastodon. Instructors, students and others could also look out for my forthcoming textbook with Amelia Finaret based on the course described at my teaching blog on Food Economics: Agriculture, Nutrition and Health.

Handbook chapter — if you read only one thing from me, make it this:

Recent scholarly publications — scroll down for earlier years:

  • July 2023 bulletin on cost of healthy diets in Ethiopia, from EPHI
  • May 2023 article on global food prices during COVID, in GFS
  • Feb 2023 article on true cost accounting for food, in CDN
  • Jan 2023 book chapter on cost of meal preparation, for UNFSS
  • Sept 2022 article on nutrient flows globally, in Nature Food
  • July 2022 article on whole-household diet costs, in AJAE (preprint)
  • May 2022 article on food prices during COVID, in Nature Food
  • Mar 2022 article on child growth velocity, in J. of Nutrition
  • Jan 2022 article on variation in diet costs worldwide, in LancetPH
  • Oct 2021 article on child growth in Burkina Faso, in AJCN
  • Oct 2021 article on Food Compass nutrient profiling, in Nature Food
  • Sept 2021 article on price data availability, in Food Policy
  • Sept 2021 article on measuring resilience, in GFS
  • Sept 2021 article on food systems & nutrition, in AJCN
  • Aug 2021 textbook (4th ed.) on Economics of Agricultural Development
  • June 2021 brief on cost of preparing a basic meal for the UN FSS
  • June 2021 report on true cost accounting for the UN FSS
  • June 2021 article on food preferences in Viet Nam, in Appetite
  • May 2021 article on cost-effectiveness of food interventions in GFS
  • Mar 2021 article on global nutritional inequality in Nature Food
  • Feb 2021 article on restaurant menu item descriptions in AJPM
  • Jan 2021 article on topic selection and research ethics in AEPP
  • Jan 2021 book chapter on agriculture and undernutrition
  • Dec 2020 article on seasonality of diet costs in Science Advances

Selected recent presentations

Recent news and media

Links below list archived news and media, publications and presentations

Archived news and media

Older articles and working papers

Archived presentations

Mastodon