A recent study from Elliot Anenberg of the Washington, D.C. Federal Reserve System and Edward Kung of UCLA takes a detailed look at the economy and geography of food trucks in our nation’s cities. To get at this, the study uses unique data on food trucks from the U.S. Census Bureau and a dataset of daily Washington, D.C. food truck locations, as well as social media data from Twitter and Google Trends. The study is particularly interested in the connection between food trucks and new digital technologies—especially social media—and how food trucks make use of them.

Here are its five big takeaways.

  1. Twitter is a big factor in food truck location.
  2. The connection between food trucks and digital technology is greater in big, dense cities.
  3. When it comes to location, variety matters a lot.
  4. Food truck location is spiky.
  5. Food trucks cause households to spend more money on eating out.

Find the entire article at citylab.com [here]

Download the entire study at ssrn.com [here]