Economies of scale in the Food Stamp program : February 1985.

Abstract: A detailed report for food policy makers and economists reviews the concepts and existing research findings on establishing economy of scale adjustments in order to assess whether such adjustments would be justifiable for the US Food Stamp Program (FSP). Following an evaluation of current and alternative FSP adjustment factors and of various statistical models for controlling for the variation in household food consumption according to family size, it was concluded that it does not appear to be advisable to change the current economy of scale factors for the FSP at the present time. Differences between the statistical methodology and variable definitions used to estimate the current set of adjustment factors and those used to reestimate the using new data make it impossible to detect whether the economies of scale have changed, and, if so, in what direction.