Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/65989 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
ISER Working Paper Series No. 2012-12
Publisher: 
University of Essex, Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER), Colchester
Abstract: 
Almost 300,000 entitled children do not participate in the UK's Free School Meals (FSM) programme, worth up to £400 per year. Welfare take-up can be stigma and lack of information. This paper uses a school-level dataset and fixed-effect instrumental variables strategy to show that peer-group participation has a substantial role in overcoming these barriers. Identification of endogenous peer effects is achieved by exploiting a scheme which extended FSM entitlement to all children in some school cohorts. Results show that in a typical school a 10 percentage point rise in peer-group take-up would reduce non-participation by almost a quarter.
Subjects: 
school meals
peer effects
welfare stigma
aggregated data
JEL: 
H75
I28
I38
Z13
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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