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Abstract
Food deserts are associated with lower quality diets and higher obesity rates.
Vegetable consumption is key to a healthy diet, reduced obesity and improved health
outcomes. Existing research provides little guidance for improving such food environments
due to lack of adequate consumption data. This paper addresses this by estimating vegetable
demand elasticities for a food-desert community in Detroit, relying on data from a natural
experiment. Expenditure played a greater role in determining purchasing behavior than prices.
Both elasticities were larger than the national average. Consequently, any policy that
increases income or reduces prices could have a significant impact.