Direct Certification and its Impacts: How Policy Shapes School Lunch Participation Among Treated Households in the Southeast Open Access

Abstract

The National School Lunch Program as a widely recognizable means-tested government program has seen very little quantitative analysis associated with its impacts. The nationwide implementation of direct certification of this program as a policy tool boasts minor statistically significant increases in participation. Current research shows that at the state level, there have been incremental increases in participation around the policy implementation period. This study intends to provide a more contemporary analysis of these policy effects while utilizing the most recent data from the Current Population Survey as provided by the U.S. Census Bureau. The model compares grouped state-level impacts of participation in the National School Lunch Program between low and high implementation levels of direct certification post-policy. The results suggest the effect of direct certification helped states with low implementation rise to levels of high implementation states in the post-policy period.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction ……………………………………… 1

Chapter 2: Literature Review ………………………………... 3

Chapter 3: Theory …………………………………………… 9

Chapter 4: Method & Design …………………………. 11

Table 1 ……………………………………………………….. 12

Figure 1: ………….………………………………………… 14

Chapter 5: Data ………….………………………………... 16

Chapter 6: Results …………………………………………… 17

Table 2 …………………………………………………………… 18

Chapter 7: Discussion ………………………………………. 19

Chapter 8: Citations …………………………………………. 23

Chapter 9: Appendix ………………………………………. 24

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Quantitative Science
Degree	B.S.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Political Science, General
Keyword	Difference in Difference Policy Analysis
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Dr. Kevin McAlister, Emory University Dr. Michael Rich, Emory University
Committee Members	Dr. Kiela Crabtree, Emory University

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