In a testament to the slowness of academic publishing in economics, I noticed two co-authored papers were just released that we've been working and waiting on quite literally for years.
1) The Economic Journal finally released a paper I wrote with Laurent Muller, Anne Lacroix, and Bernard Ruffieux. I blogged on this paper about a year and a half ago when it was first accepted. In short, we find that "fat taxes" and "thin subsidies" are a double whammy on the poor because the price policies lead to i): the poor paying higher taxes owing to the fact they tend to eat more unhealthy foods than the rich, and ii) the poor receiving fewer subsidies owing to the fact they tend to eat fewer healthy foods than the rich. These effects were exacerbated by the finding in that the poor tended to be more habit prone than the rich, sticking more to their now relatively more expensive diets. These findings have direct implications for the food movement policy proposals I discussed last week.
2) In early 2010, I was working with a bright young Master's student named Rock Andre. Rock happened to be from Haiti, and when the earthquake hit his homeland, he decided to shift his research focus. He returned home in the aftermath of the earthquake and surveyed over 1,000 people. Development Policy Review just published that research. Here's part of the abstract:
“The results indicate that almost two thirds of Haitians lost a friend to the earthquake, and nearly half lost a family member. People reported spending more on food in the aftermath of the earthquake, and the level of food aid received does not appear to have any impact on food expenditures. Among different types of aid, Haitians stated being most in need of a job—something difficult for international aid agencies to supply over the long run. They also indicated that quality of life would be most improved by education. The lessons learned in Haiti may prove useful in addressing future natural disasters.”