Mothers as insurance: Family spillovers in WIC
利用断点回归设计，研究儿童年满5岁失去WIC资格后对家庭营养和食品安全的影响，发现母亲通过减少自身摄入来保护孩子。
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is a widely used program. Previous research shows that WIC improves birth outcomes, but evidence about impacts on older children and their families is limited. We use a regression discontinuity leveraging a loss of benefits at age five when children become ineligible for WIC and examine nutritional and laboratory outcomes for adults and children. We find little impact on children who aged out of the program. But caloric intake falls and food insecurity increases among adult women, suggesting that mothers protect children by consuming less themselves. We find no effect on others in the household.