Student Responses to the Changing Content of School Meals in India

Farzana Afridi, Bidisha Barooah and Rohini Somanathan

Working Papers from eSocialSciences

Abstract: Can countries with binding budget constraints increase the benefits of school transfers through better program design? A cost-neutral change is used in the design of India’s school meal program to study this question. Municipal schools in Delhi switched from packaged snacks to cooked meals in 2003, with no change in payments to meal providers. Variation in the timing of this transition is used and child-level panel data to estimate a 3 percentage point rise in average monthly attendance in response to the new program. The effects are largest for early grades, morning school shifts and schools serving diverse menus.

Keywords: cost-neutral change; India; budget constraints; school transfers; Municipal schools; Delhi; snacks; meal; child-level; grades; school shifts; serving (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-10
Note: Institutional Papers
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Working Paper: Student responses to the changing content of school meals in India (2016)
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