Publication type
Journal Article
Author
Publication date
October 15, 2015
Summary:
29% of the 1.4 million eligible children do not participate in the UK's
Free School Meals programme. Like other welfare benefits, take-up of
free school meals is affected by stigma and lack of information. This
paper uses a fixed-effect instrumental variables strategy to evaluate
the role of peer-group participation in overcoming these barriers.
Identification of endogenous peer effects is achieved by exploiting a
scheme that extended free school meal entitlement to all children in
some areas. Results show that a 10 percentage point rise in peer-group
take-up reduces non-participation by 3.3–4.0 percentage points, or
between 29% and 35%.
Published in
Economica
Volume and page numbers
Volume: 82 , p.976 -993
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ecca.12147
ISSN
130427
Subjects
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