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Long-Term Effects of Childhood Nutrition: Evidence from a School Lunch Reform

Jesper Alex-Petersen (), Petter Lundborg and Dan-Olof Rooth
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Jesper Alex-Petersen: Lund University

No 11234, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We examine the long-term impact of a policy that introduced free and nutritious school lunches in Swedish primary schools. For this purpose, we use historical data on the gradual implementation of the policy across municipalities and employ a difference-in-differences design to estimate the impact of this lunch policy on a broad range of medium and long-term outcomes, including lifetime income, health, cognitive skills, and education. Our results show that the school lunch program generated substantial long-term benefits, where pupils exposed to the program during their entire primary school period have 3 percent greater life-time earnings. In addition, we find the effect to be greater for pupils that were exposed at earlier ages and for pupils from poor households. Finally, exposure to the school lunch program had substantial effects on educational attainment and health and these effects can explain a large part of the return to school lunches.

Keywords: income; long-term; childhood; early life; nutrition; causal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I38 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2017-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-eur, nep-hea, nep-lma and nep-ure
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Published - published in: Review of Economic Studies, 2022, 89 (2), 876-908

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Related works:
Journal Article: Long-Term Effects of Childhood Nutrition: Evidence from a School Lunch Reform (2022) Downloads
Working Paper: Long-Term Effects of Childhood Nutrition: Evidence from a School Lunch Reform (2018) Downloads
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