Replication data for: How Food Banks Use Markets to Feed the Poor

Version
V0
Resource Type
Dataset
Creator
- Prendergast, Canice
Publication Date
2017-11-01
Description
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Abstract
A difficult issue for organizations is how to assign valuable resources across competing opportunities. This work describes how Feeding America allocates about 300 million pounds of food a year to over two hundred food banks across the United States. It does so in an unusual way: in 2005, it switched from a centralized queuing system, where food banks would wait their turn, to a market-based mechanism where they bid daily on truckloads of food using a "fake" currency called shares. The change and its impact are described here, showing how the market system allowed food banks to sort based on their preferences.
Availability
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Relations
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Is supplement to
DOI: 10.1257/jep.31.4.145 (Text)
Publications
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Prendergast, Canice. “How Food Banks Use Markets to Feed the Poor.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 31, no. 4 (November 2017): 145–62. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.31.4.145.
- ID: 10.1257/jep.31.4.145 (DOI)
Update Metadata: 2020-05-18 | Issue Number: 2 | Registration Date: 2019-10-13