Asmaa Elbadawy Population Council – WANA Region

Research Questions Evaluate the impact of school meals and deworming programs on Nutrition and health School outcomes School attendance (attract new students and retain existing ones) School progress (dropout, grade repetition) Learning/achievement (standardized test) Future incremental earnings / cost-benefit analysis Variability in impact by quantity and quality of food Motivation: Negative effects of severe malnutrition: cognitive development, attendance, dropout and repetition, perpetuation of poverty. Need for rigorous evaluation

Comments on Outcomes Studied Long term effects when timeframe is one year ? Impacts on future earnings? Quantifying the benefits? Dropout, repetition Dropout in final years? Attracting new students to school How are you measuring that? Attracting different type of students that would otherwise not be in school making student characteristics differ across control and treatment groups School delay  cognitive skills? Preventing school closure, open new schools? MOE decision?

Sample & Data 4 poorest regions in the country 4 groups (each consisting of 40 same-sized schools) Control group Group 2: treated with school meals Group 3: treated with deworming program Group 4: treated with both Selection criteria: Regions: poorest, based on? Schools: size, similar characteristics? Baseline and endline surveys + FGD + secondary data

Methods Issue: endogenous treatment intensity Absenteeism Number of days canteens are open (why?) Difference-in–differences Continuous treatment effects (Hirano and Imbens 04) Matching methods (unobservable differences?) Markov transition matrix