PhD Seminar (Economics): Food one click away: The impact of online food delivery platforms on food security in Indonesia

Pyan Muchtar, ANU Crawford School of Public Policy PhD candidate, presents his research about online food delivery platforms in Indonesia.

This paper examises the causal effects of online food delivery (OFD) platforms on household food security in the context of a developing country, Indonesia. Utilizing data from the consumption module of the National Socio-Economic Survey (Susenas) from 2012 to 2022, combined with a novel dataset on OFD platform penetration across districts - constructed through internet scraping and machine learning - we employ a contemporary event-study estimator to analyze the impact. Our findings indicate that the expansion of OFD services enhances food security at the district level, with a more pronounced effect in rural areas and among younger households. We provide suggestive evidence that this impact is likely driven by increased competition in the food market.