The 2013 edition of the "Digest of Education Statistics" is the 49th in a series of publications initiated in 1962. The Digest has been issued annually except for combined editions for the years 1977-78, 1983-84, and 1985-86. Its primary purpose is to provide a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of American…

This paper assesses whether school lunches contribute to childhood obesity. I employ two methods to isolate the causal impact of school lunches on obesity. First, using panel data, I ?nd that children who consume school lunches are more likely to be obese than those who brown bag their lunches even though they enter kindergarten with the same…