Unintended Consequences: September 2008 Archives

Well.  At least they are playing along with project subsize me:

Abstract:     
We estimate the impacts of Wal-Mart and warehouse club retailers on height-adjusted body weight and overweight and obesity status, finding robust evidence that non-grocery selling Wal-Marts reduce weight while grocery-selling Wal-Marts and warehouse clubs either reduce weight or have no effect. The effects appear strongest for women, minorities, urban residents, and the poor. We then examine the effects of these retailers on exercise, food and alcohol consumption, smoking, and eating out at restaurants in order to explain the results for weight. Most notably, the evidence suggests that all three types of stores increase consumption of fruits and vegetables while reducing consumption of foods high in fat. This is consistent with the thesis that Wal-Mart increases real incomes through its policy of "Every Day Low Prices," making healthy food more affordable, as opposed to the thesis that cheap food prices make us eat more.

In all seriousness, WalMart does some pretty abhorent things,  but the company isn't all evil.  Sam Walton would have been disgusted at the human resources practices that have gotten the company in trouble in the last decade.  But in shaking their fists at big corporations, people tend to forget that they have pretty big benefits.  The fact that WalMart makes a ton of stuff affordable to people with lower incomes is NOT trivial.

Hat tip to Tyler Cowen.