How Market Design Economics Fixed America's Food Bank Distribution System
By
ortegaygasset
If you only eat one bagel today, this is the bagel.
Summary
University of Chicago economists applied market design principles to fix Feeding America's broken food distribution system, which previously ignored existing stocks and donations, leading to inefficient distribution. The new system increased food supply by 100 million pounds annually, equivalent to feeding an additional 60,000 people daily, demonstrating the practical success of economic market design in solving real-world problems.
Key quotes
· 5 pulledFor most of its history, Feeding America, the nation's largest nonprofit, relied on a broken system to distribute its 220 million pounds of food per year.
It ignored existing stocks and donations, flooding fully stocked food banks in Idaho with potatoes and warehouses in Alaska with five gallon buckets of pickles.
To fix how America fed its hungry would require the economics of market design.
The new system increased food supply by 100 million pounds annually, equivalent to feeding an additional 60,000 people every day.
It is one of the clearest successes of market design so far.
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