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From better schools to better nourishment: evidence from a school-building program in India

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  • Chatterjee Somdeep

    (Business Environment (Economics) Group, Indian Institute of Management Lucknow, IIM Road, Prabandh Nagar, Lucknow 226013, Uttar Pradesh, India)

Abstract

This is a short paper analyzing the potential effects of a targeted school-building program on health indicators. The Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) program in India intended to build residential schools for girls from historically disadvantaged sections of the society, providing a unique multifaceted policy setting with tenets of gender equality, affirmative action, and infrastructure reform in education. Exploiting the potentially exogenous cross-sectional variations generated by the institutional features of implementation of this intervention, I run triple-difference regressions to find that the program led to increases in body mass index (BMI) among the underweight. There seems to be a positive correlation between KGBV exposure and probability of being in the “healthy” band of BMI indicators.

Suggested Citation

  • Chatterjee Somdeep, 2020. "From better schools to better nourishment: evidence from a school-building program in India," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 10(1), pages 1-13, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:vrs:izajlp:v:10:y:2020:i:1:p:13:n:7
    DOI: 10.2478/izajolp-2020-0002
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Augusto De Venanzi, 2022. "The structural design of conditional cash transfers: Colombia, India, and the USA compared," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 40(4), July.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    health; education for girls; BMI; affirmative action;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development

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