TY - JOUR
T1 - Not just for poor kids
T2 - The impact of universal free school breakfast on meal participation and student outcomes
AU - Leos-Urbel, Jacob
AU - Schwartz, Amy Ellen
AU - Weinstein, Meryle
AU - Corcoran, Sean
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank staff at the New York City Department of Education and the department's Office of School Food for their generous time and effort in providing the data used in this paper. We also thank conference participants at the annual meetings of Association for Education Finance and Policy, Association for Public Policy and Management, and the National Tax Association for their thoughtful comments. Research reported in this publication was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01HD070739, and by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education , through Grant R305B080019 . The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health, the Institute of Education Sciences, or the U.S. Department of Education.
PY - 2013/10
Y1 - 2013/10
N2 - This paper examines the impact of the implementation of a universal free school breakfast policy on meals program participation, attendance, and academic achievement. In 2003, New York City made school breakfast free for all students regardless of income, while increasing the price of lunch for those ineligible for meal subsidies. Using a difference-in-difference estimation strategy, we derive plausibly causal estimates of the policy's impact by exploiting within and between group variation in school meal pricing before and after the policy change. Our estimates suggest that the policy resulted in small increases in breakfast participation both for students who experienced a decrease in the price of breakfast and for free-lunch eligible students who experienced no price change. The latter suggests that universal provision may alter behavior through mechanisms other than price, highlighting the potential merits of universal provision over targeted services. We find limited evidence of policy impacts on academic outcomes.
AB - This paper examines the impact of the implementation of a universal free school breakfast policy on meals program participation, attendance, and academic achievement. In 2003, New York City made school breakfast free for all students regardless of income, while increasing the price of lunch for those ineligible for meal subsidies. Using a difference-in-difference estimation strategy, we derive plausibly causal estimates of the policy's impact by exploiting within and between group variation in school meal pricing before and after the policy change. Our estimates suggest that the policy resulted in small increases in breakfast participation both for students who experienced a decrease in the price of breakfast and for free-lunch eligible students who experienced no price change. The latter suggests that universal provision may alter behavior through mechanisms other than price, highlighting the potential merits of universal provision over targeted services. We find limited evidence of policy impacts on academic outcomes.
KW - Child poverty policy
KW - School finance
KW - School meals program
KW - Universal service provision
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84880579284&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84880579284&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.econedurev.2013.06.007
DO - 10.1016/j.econedurev.2013.06.007
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84880579284
VL - 36
SP - 88
EP - 107
JO - Economics of Education Review
JF - Economics of Education Review
SN - 0272-7757
ER -