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

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Project Citation:

Prendergast, Canice. Replication data for: How Food Banks Use Markets to Feed the Poor. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2017. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2019-10-12. https://doi.org/10.3886/E113999V1

Project Description

Summary: 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.

Scope of Project

JEL Classification:
      D44 Auctions
      D82 Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
      L31 Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs; Social Entrepreneurship

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V1 [2019-10-12]

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