• Media type: E-Article
  • Title: Take‐up of Free School Meals: Price Effects and Peer Effects
  • Contributor: Holford, Angus
  • Published: Wiley, 2015
  • Published in: Economica, 82 (2015) 328, Seite 976-993
  • Language: English
  • DOI: 10.1111/ecca.12147
  • ISSN: 0013-0427; 1468-0335
  • Origination:
  • Footnote:
  • Description: 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%.