In-kind programs are typically evaluated using a one-period model. This causes certain issues to be obscured, such as the effect on an efficiency analysis of the length of a family's participation in the program. In this article an intertemporal model with a nonlinear budget frontier and a simulation methodology are used to investigate, for hypothetical participants in the food stamp program, how the benefit-subsidy ratio changes as the length of participation increases. The results indicate that this ratio may either rise or fall, with a significant decline being a possibility.
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