Health economics
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Many commentators have speculated that agricultural policies have contributed to increased obesity rates in the United States, yet such claims are often made without any analysis of the complex links between real-world farm commodity support programs, prices and consumption of foods, and caloric intake. This article carefully studies the effects of US agricultural policies on prices and quantities of 10 agricultural commodities and nine food categories in the United States over time. ⋯ Our results indicate that-holding all other policies constant-removing US subsidies on grains and oilseeds in the three periods would have caused caloric consumption to decrease minimally whereas removal of all US agricultural policies (including barriers against imports of sugar and dairy products) would have caused total caloric intake to increase. Our results also indicate that the influence of agricultural policies on caloric intake has diminished over time.