IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp18042.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Causal Impact of School-Meal Programmes on Children in Developed Economies: A Meta-Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Ayllón, Sara

    (Universitat de Girona)

  • Lado, Samuel

    (Universitat de Girona)

Abstract

This paper is the first to meta-analyse the literature on the causal effects of school-meal programmes on children's behavioural, health and educational outcomes in developed countries, while addressing potential publication bias and heterogeneity between studies. We create a sample of 2,821 estimates from 42 studies and gather 59 aspects reflecting the context in which each estimate was obtained, including type of data, programme characteristics, student population, estimation method and publication quality, among others. We employ both linear and non-linear techniques to correct for publication bias, and we use Bayesian model averaging to study heterogeneous effects and address model uncertainty. The results are consistent with small publication bias - with the exception of studies devoted to analysing test scores, which appear more selective when reporting results. Once publication bias is accounted for, we find that school-meal programmes in high-income economies have minimal impact on students' behaviour, health and education. Our heterogeneity analysis documents the fact that means-tested programmes and breakfast initiatives yield the greatest benefits for children's outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Ayllón, Sara & Lado, Samuel, 2025. "The Causal Impact of School-Meal Programmes on Children in Developed Economies: A Meta-Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 18042, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18042
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp18042.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods
    • H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18042. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.