The most recent figures show that 16 percent of children aged 6-11 are obese – almost twice the rate of overweight in the early 1980s. Although there are few straightforward policy tools to combat the high level of obesity, almost two thirds of school children eat a National School Lunch...

The Earned Income Tax Credit is unique among social programs in that benefits are not paid out evenly across the calendar year. We exploit this feature of the EITC to investigate how the credit influences the food expenditure patterns of eligible households. We find that eligible households...

Questions have arisen as to whether the school environment is currently a contributing factor to the increase in childhood obesity, and whether changes in school policies could help curb the increase. In this chapter, we discuss key aspects of the literature on the role of the school food...