About

Marianne P. Bitler is a Professor and Department Chair in the Department of Economics at UC Davis. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, obtained in 1998, and a B.S. in Mathematics with Honors from The Pennsylvania State University, earned in 1991. Her expertise spans public economics, labor economics, health economics, and applied microeconomics. Prior to her current position, she was a professor of economics at UC Irvine and has worked at the Public Policy Institute of California, the RAND Corporation, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Trade Commission. She is a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research and a research fellow at IZA. Additionally, she has served as a co-editor for prominent journals such as the Journal of Human Resources, the American Journal of Health Economics, and JPAM. Her research focuses on the effects of government safety net programs on disadvantaged groups, economic demography, health economics, public economics, and the economics of education.

Research topics

• Economics
• Demographic economics
• Business
• Medicine
• Labour economics

Selected publications

• The Intersection of Place and Need: How Lack of Enrollment Offices Deters Participation in the Safety Net

  Tax Policy and the Economy · 2025-12-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Take-up of means-tested transfer programs in the United States remains incomplete despite their substantial value to eligible households.We contribute to the literature on determinants of program participation by providing the first causal estimates of how proximity to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) offices affects program participation.Using administrative data on SNAP receipt in a single state linked to geocoded office locations, we exploit quasi-experimental variation from frequent office openings and closings.Event study estimates show that SNAP participation in a census tract decreases following the closure of an office by 7-9 percent over two years, with suggestive evidence of increases in participation following office openings.These effects are concentrated in urban areas and are robust to alternative specifications and tests of endogeneity in changes in office placement.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Unanticipated Effects of Electronic Benefits Transfer on WIC Stores and Redemptions: Evidence from Administrative Data on Vendors

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-11-01

  reportOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Impact of the 2009 WIC revision on infant and maternal health: A quasi-experimental multi-state study

  Social Science & Medicine · 2025-03-20

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Pandemic-Era Increases in SNAP Benefits Reduced Food Insufficiency

  American Journal of Public Health · 2025-10-08 · 1 citations

  editorialOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Unanticipated Effects of Electronic Benefits Transfer on WIC Stores and Redemptions: Evidence From Administrative Data on Vendors

  Journal of Policy Analysis and Management · 2025-12-25

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  ABSTRACT We evaluate the effects of the nationwide transition in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) from paper vouchers to Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards on store decisions to seek authorization to accept WIC benefits. We combine novel administrative data from “The Integrity Profile” (USDA administrative data on stores participating in WIC and their WIC reimbursements) with new nationwide policy data on WIC EBT implementation. Using a staggered adoption difference‐in‐differences approach, we find that the transition had heterogeneous and occasionally unanticipated effects across states. The number of WIC‐authorized independent vendors declined 10% following WIC EBT implementation. We find no significant effect of WIC EBT implementation on WIC redemptions in a subset of ZIP codes with sufficient vendors for data sharing. Vendors in states that were early adopters of WIC EBT have more negative effects on the probability of WIC authorization, which may be due to learning effects or improvements in technology over time. Past experience with EBT implementation by financial services providers hired by states to help them implement WIC EBT processing (processors) reduces the magnitude of these negative effects of EBT implementation on store participation in WIC.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Diet Quality and Weight Status are Predicted by Federal Nutrition Assistance Program Participation, Health, and Demographics

  Current Developments in Nutrition · 2025-07-15 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  <h2>Abstract</h2><h3>Background</h3> Social safety net programs, such as Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), provide access to vital medical and nutrition services. Few studies have investigated if demographic, social, and economic determinants of health, including length of time spent on these safety net programs, are associated with diet quality and weight status in early childhood. <h3>Objective</h3> Classification and regression tree (CART) analysis, a machine learning method, was used to determine health predictors to identify patterns of children with higher vs. lower diet quality and higher vs. lower weight status. <h3>Methods</h3> Using the WIC Infant and Toddler Feeding Practices Study-2 (unweighted N=3,051; weighted N=413,211), CART identified the sequence of binary splits that best differentiated the sample on Healthy Eating Index-2020 (HEI-2020; range 0-100) and HEI-2020 subscales (adequacy and moderation), and body mass index z-score (BMIz) at 2-5 years. Predictors including maternal BMI, child birthweight, sociodemographics, and length of time spent on safety net programs were considered. <h3>Results</h3> Higher HEI-2020 scores were primarily predicted by race and ethnicity (e.g., Hispanic Spanish or not Non-Hispanic White), and longer WIC and shorter SNAP duration. In examining HEI-2020 subscales, higher HEI adequacy was primarily predicted by higher education, older maternal age, longer WIC duration, and race and ethnicity. Higher HEI moderation was primarily predicted by race and ethnicity and longer WIC duration. Higher BMIz was primarily predicted by higher birth weight. <h3>Conclusions</h3> Child diet quality and weight status were associated with different social determinants of health, which included maternal weight status, race and ethnicity, and food assistance program participation, particularly WIC.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Effects of school meals on nutrition: Evidence from the start of the school year

  Food Policy · 2025-06-16

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Unanticipated Effects of Electronic Benefits Transfer on WIC Stores and Redemptions: Evidence from Administrative Data on Vendors

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• The Macroeconomy and Poverty

  The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science · 2024-01-01 · 3 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  We revisit a key question about poverty that was a repeated subject of investigation for Rebecca Blank, estimating the effects of the business cycle on pre–tax-and-transfer and post–tax-and-transfer poverty. Using an anchored household-level version of the Supplemental Poverty Measure’s thresholds and resources, we show that poverty is countercyclical, rising in recessions and falling in expansions. We also find that the social safety net provides protection against cyclicality: Post–tax-and-transfer poverty is less cyclical than is pre–tax-and-transfer poverty. The largest cyclicality occurs among children and Black and Hispanic persons, and lower cyclicality is evident among white and elderly persons. The safety net leads to the largest reductions in cyclicality for the elderly and the smallest effects for nonelderly households without children. Finally, we find an inverted U shape with cyclicality low and rising below 75 percent of poverty and declining above.

  PublisherDOI

• Long-Run Effects of Food Assistance: Evidence from the Food Stamp Program and Administrative Data

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2024-11-01 · 1 citations

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Previous work using mostly self-reports shows large, positive effects of early-life exposure to Food Stamps on self-sufficiency, health, and well-being-lasting well into adulthood.We combine this same adoption timing with administrative data on earnings, employment, and use of disability benefits.Women born in counties with Food Stamps available in early life had 3 percent higher earnings at age 32.Effects were larger in counties with another in-kind food program in place before Food Stamps.Food Stamps relied on the other program's preexisting administrative eligibility determination.Our results establish links between pre-existing administrative infrastructure and the later-life impacts of Food Stamps.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• PROJECT 4: Adult Correlates of Middle-childhood Skills and Behaviors

  NIH · $9.3M · 2017

• NIH Grant R03OH008244

  NIH · $179k · 2008

• NIH Grant R03HD046485

  NIH · $179k · 2008

Frequent coauthors

• Hilary Hoynes

  279 shared

• Jonah B. Gelbach

  137 shared

• Madeline Zavodny

  University of North Florida

  69 shared

• Christopher S. Carpenter

  40 shared

• Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach

  21 shared

• Tobias J. Moskowitz

  Yale University

  20 shared

• Janet Currie

  Princeton University

  15 shared

• Thurston Domina

  13 shared

Awards & honors

• Brattle Award — Distinguished Paper Prize for the Best Corpo…
• Food Safety and Nutrition Section of the American Associatio…