Null Effect of an Expensive Small Gift: The Case of the One-Rupee Rice Scheme in Andhra Pradesh, India

India’s food transfer program has supplied basic commodities to a large percentage of the population. This program has experienced several reforms regarding the coverage of beneficiaries, entitlement or availability of distributable foodgrains, or size of consumer subsidies. This study asseses the impacts of the revision of the distributed price of rice on food consumption and nutrition in Andhra Pradesh, a southern state in India, in November 2011.This research used two rounds of large-sample nationwide household survey data. Since this rice price revision was made in the middle of the latter survey round of these survey data, from two rupees to one rupee per kilogram, this event allows us to determine the impact of this additional food subsidy on the nutrition or food consumption of beneficiaries in a quasi-experimental manner. To this end, this study adopted the triple difference approach based on the falsification effect on non-beneficiaries. The results showed that an additional support for rice price did not change food consumption or nutrition intake.