Student Responses to the Changing Content of School Meals in India
Published By: CDE on eSS | Published Date: October, 04 , 2016Can 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.
Author(s): Farzana Afridi, Bidisha Barooah, Rohini Somanathan | Posted on: Oct 20, 2016 | Views() | Download (493)