Economists have accumulated mountains of evidence about food prices and consumer behavior, almost of which focuses on revealed preferences and market outcomes, we also have a lot of data about markets for bulk commodities. We have much less evidence on the retail cost of foods needed for health.  

In recent years I’ve been collaborating with nutritionists to cost out their recommendations, using economic principles to construct new price indexes and other metrics to answer a few basic questions:
•  are healthier diets affordable, given peoples’ incomes?
•  how does the affordability of healthy diets vary over space and time?
•  above all, what can be done to lower costs & improve affordability?

The answers, it turns out, are quite surprising – and useful.  Where healthy diets are out of reach, poor nutrition is caused by poverty rather than food choice. Once a healthy diet becomes affordable, then food choice is driven by other factors. My current project on this topic is called Food Prices for Nutrition.

To see our findings explained in a 20-minute talk for U.S. audiences at the National Academies, check out this video. 

Check it out!