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

57 Pages Posted: 8 Jan 2018

See all articles by Jesper Alex-Petersen

Jesper Alex-Petersen

Lund University

Petter Lundborg

Tinbergen Institute; Lund University School of Economics and Management; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Dan-Olof Rooth

University of Kalmar; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

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: nutrition, early life, childhood, long-term, income, causal

JEL Classification: I12, I38, J24

Suggested Citation

Alex-Petersen, Jesper and Lundborg, Petter and Lundborg, Petter and Rooth, Dan-Olof, Long-Term Effects of Childhood Nutrition: Evidence from a School Lunch Reform. IZA Discussion Paper No. 11234, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3097332 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3097332

Petter Lundborg

Tinbergen Institute ( email )

Burg. Oudlaan 50
Rotterdam, 3062 PA
Netherlands

Lund University School of Economics and Management ( email )

P.O Box 7080
Lund
Sweden

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Dan-Olof Rooth

University of Kalmar ( email )

Sweden

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Schaumburg-Lippe-Str. 7 / 9
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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