Jessie Handbury

Education

Ph.D. in Economics: Columbia University, 2013

B.A. in EconomicsMathematics: Columbia University, 2005

Academic Positions Held

Assistant Professor, The Wharton School: 2012present

NBER Faculty Research Fellow, International Trade and Investment (ITI), 2014Penn IUR Faculty Fellow, 2014Jessie Handbury, Ilya Rahkovsky, Molly Schnell (Working), Is the focus on food deserts fruitless? Retail access and food purchases across the socioeconomic spectrum.

Abstract: Despite an absence of causal evidence showing that limited access to healthy foods is to blame for unhealthful consumption, policies aimed at improving poor diets by improving access are ubiquitous. In this paper, we use novel data describing both the healthfulness of household food purchases and the retail landscapes facing consumers to measure the role that access plays in explaining why some people in the United States eat more nutritious foods than others. We first confirm that households with lower income and education purchase less healthful foods. We then measure the spatial variation in the average nutritional quality of available food products across local markets, revealing that healthy foods are less likely to be available in lowincome neighborhoods. Though significant, spatial differences in access are small relative to the spatial differences in store sales and explain only a fraction of the variation that we observe in the nutritional content of household purchases. Systematic socioeconomic disparities in household purchases persist after access is equated: even in the same store, wealthier and more educated households purchase more healthful foods. Consistent with this result, we further find that the nutritional quality of household purchases responds very little to changes in their retail environment, especially among households with low levels of income and education. Together, our results indicate that even if spatial disparities in access are entirely resolved, over twothirds of the existing socioeconomic disparities in consumption would remain.

Jessie Handbury (Work In Progress), Urban Revival in America, 2000 to 2010.

Jessie Handbury and David E. Weinstein (2014), Goods Prices and Availability in Cities, The Review of Economic Studies.

Jessie Handbury, David E. Weinstein, Tsutomu Watanabe (Working), How Much Do Official Price Indexes Tell Us About Inflation?.

Abstract: Official price indexes, such as the CPI, are imperfect indicators of inflation calculated using ad hoc price formulae different from the theoretically wellfounded inflation indexes favored by economists. This paper provides the first estimate of how accurately the CPI informs us about “true” inflation. We use the largest price and quantity dataset ever employed in economics to build a Törnqvist inflation index for Japan between 1989 and 2010. Our comparison of this true inflation index with the CPI indicates that the CPI bias is not constant but depends on the level of inflation. We show the informativeness of the CPI rises with inflation. When measured inflation is low (less than 2.4% per year) the CPI is a poor predictor of true inflation even over 12month periods. Outside this range, the CPI is a much better measure of inflation. We find that the U.S. PCE Deflator methodology is superior to the Japanese CPI methodology but still exhibits substantial measurement error and biases rendering it a problematic predictor of inflation in low inflation regimes as well.

Jessie Handbury (Under Revision), Are Poor Cities Cheap for Everyone? NonHomotheticity and the Cost of Living Across U.S. Cities.

Abstract: Standard costofliving indexes assume that preferences are homothetic, ignoring the wellestablished fact that tastes vary with income. This paper considers how assuming homotheticity biases our estimates of spatial price indexes for consumers at different income levels. I use Nielsen householdlevel purchase data in over 500 categories of food products to calculate microfounded income and cityspecific price indexes that account for nonhomotheticity, as well as cityspecific price indexes that do not. I find that the incomespecific crosscity price indexes vary widely across income groups. Grocery costs are 20 percent lower in a poor city relative to a wealthy city for a lowincome household, but they are 20 percent higher in the poor city for a highincome household. The homothetic price indexes perform well in predicting the crosscity variation in prices for low and middleincome households, but poorly for highincome households. These results suggest that using homothetic costofliving indexes understate the relative price level in poor locations for rich households.. 

Past Courses

FNCE209 REAL ESTATE INVESTMENTS

This course provides a broad introduction to real estate with a focus on investment and financing issues. Project evaluation, financing strategies, investment decision making and real estate capital markets are covered. No prior knowledge of the industry is required, but students are expected to rapidly acquire a working knowledge of real estate markets. Classes are conducted in a standard lecture format with discussion required. The course contains cases that help students evaluate the impact of more complex financing and capital market tools used in real estate. There are case studies and two midterms, depending on instructor.

REAL209 REAL ESTATE INVESTMENTS

This course provides an introduction to real estate with a focus on investment and financing issues. Project evaluation, financing strategies, investment decision making and real estate capital markets are covered. No prior knowledge of the industry is required, but students are expected to rapidly acquire a working knowledge of real estate markets. Classes are conducted in a standard lecture format with discussion required. The course contains cases that help students evaluate the impact of more complex financing and capital markets tools used in real estate. There are case studies and two midterms, (depending on instructor).

REAL399 INDEPENDENT STUDY

All independent studies must be arranged and approved by a Real Estate department faculty member with the exception of the Annual Student Research Competition. ,Annual Student Research Seminar: This class meets in the Spring semester to analyze how to conduct research in the real estate market where to find data; how to critique research; how to frame research questions; how to write a business research report; how to present a business research report. Topics are provided each year. For more information regarding the Annual Student Research Competition see the Real Estate Department's website: http://realestate.wharton.upenn.edu/.

REAL721 REAL ESTATE INVESTMENTS

This course provides an introduction to real estate with a focus on investment and financing issues. Project evaluation, financing strategies, investment decision making and capital markets are covered. No prior knowledge of the industry is required, but students are expected to rapidly acquire a working knowledge of real estate markets. Classes are conducted in a standard lecture format with discussion required. The course contains cases that help students evaluate the impact of more complex financing and capital markets tools used in real estate. There are case studies and two midterms, (depending on instructor). Crosslisted with FNCE 721.

• Why Some Suburbs Are Trying to Be More Like Cities, The Wall Street Journal 04/24/2016
• The Real Source of America’s Urban Revival, The Atlantic CityLab 02/23/2016
• Why Groceries Cost Less in Big Cities, The Atlantic Citylab 06/04/2015
• Giving the Poor Easy Access to Healthy Food Doesn’t Mean They’ll Buy It, New York Times: The Upshot 05/08/2015
• Food Deserts, Community Colleges And Innovative Slackers, FiveThirtyEight 05/06/2015
• Daily data: Food deserts are only part of the problem, Chicago Booth Capital Ideas Blog 04/08/2015
• Feeding Urban Communities: A Look at Disparities in Food Access and Nutritional Consumption, Penn IUR Urban Link 03/19/2015
• Remember the paranoia about inflation? It’s dead, almost everywhere., Washington Post Wonkblog 10/17/2014
• CPI: Noise Pollution at Low Altitudes, WSJ Real Time Economics Blog 10/31/2013
• Who Says New York Is Not Affordable?, New York Times Magazine 04/23/2013
• Food Cheaper in City – No Baloney., The Wall Street Journal 05/26/2011

Knowledge @ Wharton

• Will Angus Deaton’s Nobel Help Change Our Approach to Poverty?, Knowledge @ Wharton 10/15/2015
• The Struggle to Feed America, Knowledge @ Wharton 09/17/2015
• How Wealth and Education — Not Access — Drive Healthy Food Choices, Knowledge @ Wharton 06/18/2015