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Slow traffic, fast food: The effects of time lost on food store choice

Panka Bencsik et al.

Journal of Urban Economics2025https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2025.103737article
AJG 3ABDC A*
Weight
0.52

What the paper says

Time scarcity is one of the strongest correlates of fast food consumption. To estimate the causal effect of time lost on food choice, we match daily store-specific foot traffic data traced via smartphones to plausibly exogenous shocks in highway traffic congestion in Los Angeles County. We find that on days when highways are more congested, individuals are more likely to frequent fast food restaurants and less likely to grocery shop. In our main model, a one standard deviation increase in traffic delay leads to a 1% increase in fast food visits, equivalent to 1.2 million more fast food visits in Los Angeles County per year. The effects are particularly pronounced for afternoon rush hour traffic. Our results imply a net reduction in healthy food store choice due to time lost.

7 citations

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Cite this paper

https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2025.103737

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{panka2025,
  title        = {{Slow traffic, fast food: The effects of time lost on food store choice}},
  author       = {Panka Bencsik et al.},
  journal      = {Journal of Urban Economics},
  year         = {2025},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jue.2025.103737},
}

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Slow traffic, fast food: The effects of time lost on food store choice

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Evidence weight

0.52

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.47 × 0.4 = 0.19
M · momentum0.68 × 0.15 = 0.10
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.