When free is not costless: Mobility, stigma, and zero‐price demand in food banks

This paper examines how demand responds when the monetary price of goods is permanently set to zero, using food bank visitation in Québec (2022–2025). We develop a behavioral full‐price framework in which access is mediated by mobility and social constraints. Using a balanced panel of 19 regions and Poisson pseudo‐maximum likelihood estimation with fixed effects, we show that gasoline price shocks reduce visitation, with stronger effects in regions with longer public‐transit travel times. The negative interaction between fuel prices and transit accessibility indicates that mobility‐cost shocks disproportionately reduce demand in low‐access regions. Access remains rationed by effort, time, and stigma.