The effects of universal free lunch provision on student achievement: Evidence from South Korea

Yoonjung Kim

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2025, vol. 238, issue C

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of the Universal Free Lunch Program (UFLP) on student achievement in South Korea. I leverage the staggered rollout of the UFLP across South Korean provinces and employ difference-in-differences strategies to estimate the causal effects of the program. Taking advantage of rich school-level data, I find that providing a free lunch to all students leads to improvements in academic achievement on average. I also test for heterogeneous effects and find that the benefits of the UFLP appear universally across different baseline participation rates in the means-tested lunch subsidy. After exploring numerous potential mechanisms, I find suggestive evidence that the nutritional channel is effectively absent. Instead, the findings suggest that increased household investment in education—evidenced by increased participation in and spending on academic after-school programs—is a key pathway underlying the achievement gains. These results suggest that parents redirected the saved lunch fees toward educational investment, highlighting the importance of labels attached to public assistance.

Keywords: Subsidies; School lunch; Intrahousehold allocation; Academic achievement; Educational policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 H42 H52 H71 I22 I28 I38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:238:y:2025:i:c:s016726812500280x

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107161

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