Let Them Eat Lunch: The Impact of Universal Free Meals on Student Performance

This paper investigates the impact of extending free school lunch to all students, regardless of income, on academic performance in New York City middle schools. Using a difference-in-differences design and unique longitudinal, student-level data, we derive credibly causal estimates of the impacts of “Universal Free Meals” (UFM) on test scores in English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics, and participation in school lunch. We find UFM increases academic performance by as much as 0.083 standard deviations in math and 0.059 in ELA for non-poor students, with smaller, statistically significant effects of 0.032 and 0.027 standard deviations in math and ELA for poor students. Further, UFM increases participation in school lunch by roughly 11.0 percentage points for non-poor students and 5.4 percentage points for poor students. We then investigate the academic effects of school lunch participation per se, using UFM as an instrumental variable. Results indicate that increases in school lunch participation improve academic performance for both poor and non-poor students; an additional lunch every two weeks increases test scores by roughly 0.08 standard deviations in math and 0.07 standard deviations in ELA. Finally, we explore potential unintended consequences for student weight outcomes, finding no evidence that UFM increases the probability that students are obese or overweight. We also find no evidence of increases in average body mass index (BMI). Instead, we find some evidence that participation in school lunch improves weight outcomes for non-poor students. Results are robust to an array of alternative specifications and assumptions about the sample.     

The three phases of rock music in the Czech lands

In the Czech lands (included in Czechoslovakia until the end of 1992), rock music has evolved through three phases. In the first phase, lasting until 1968, rock musicians had no ambition to offer social or political commentaries. This began as the era of rock ‘n’ roll, which is to say music being performed for dancing. The second phase began after the Soviet bloc invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, lasting until the end of the communist era in 1989. In this phase, rock musicians (no longer playing rock ‘n’ roll were closely monitored by the authorities and were expected to sing happy songs, submitting their song texts to the authorities for approval in advance of performing them. In spite of this control, some rock groups purposefully sang political texts in the 1970s and 1980s, mocking or criticizing the communists, albeit often cryptically. Finally, in the third phase – since 1989 – having lost their ideological foe, Czech rock groups have for the most part become politically disengaged.     

The Functions of Class at the Present Time: Including Taste,or Sex and Class as Culture

Gagnier provides an analytic account of current uses of gender, sex and sexuality, and of class as objective condition, role, identity, subjectivity, performance, product of cultural formation, pain and pleasure. She concludes that we shall do better today to take from the history of political economy a focus on the division of labour, the kinds of work people do, including women's unpaid labour at home, and the ways that work structures identity and subjectivity, than on more abstract class identity (e.g. wage-labourers and capitalists), and to see that both local and global divisions of labour or work patterns are along race and gender lines as much as along class lines. The introduction of consumption models of taste and status draws together both class and gender, for consumption and leisure, the realm for most wage-labourers of pleasure, is as significant in the formation of identity and subjectivity as work, production or pain. We should account for people's pleasures and desires as well as their pain and place in narrowly conceived 'productive' relations. Class is no less significant than it always was, but future work should disaggregate the concept along these lines, mindful of gender salience in the division of labour and the reproduction of class. And it should include critical analysis of the realms of taste, pleasure, consumption, leisure and status.     

城市环境精细化治理的现实逻辑与优化路径——基于需求-回应的分析框架

随着改革开放以来城市化的不断推进,中国的城市建设和治理在取得显著成绩的同时也面临着日益严峻的环境挑战和压力。解决城市环境问题和满足城市居民对美好环境的诉求需要不断推进城市环境精细化治理。然而,当前城市环境治理仍然存在着治理理念相对滞后、治理法制不够健全、治理结构有待优化、治理过程较为粗放、治理绩效评估有所弱化等问题,阻滞了城市环境精细化治理的推进。这构成了城市环境精细化治理的需求层面。为此,应根据城市环境精细化治理的需求,采取有力的优化措施予以回应。     

证券投资基金绩效评价模型综述

基金绩效评价是基金研究的基础性问题,是以现代投资理论为基础的。绩效评价分为有基准组合绩效评价和无基准绩效评价。因所使用的基础理论不同,有基准的组合绩效评价模型分为C A PM模型的单因素模型和基于APT模型的多因素模型。     

吉林省政府绩效评估机制实证分析

吉林省从2007年开始实施对省政府工作部门的绩效评估。在吉林省的政府绩效评估机制中,评估指标体系的设计体现了战略执行的功能;评估主体的选择体现了多元化的趋势;评估方法的运用体现了定量评估和定性评估、过程评估和结果评估相结合的特点;评估结果的使用发挥了激励和约束的功能。吉林省在政府绩效评估方面的实践在很大程度上反映了地方政府对政府绩效评估机制的理论认识,在实践中也取得了相应的效果和有益的经验。     

绩效管理：走出绩效考核的困境

绩效,是个倍受关注的话题。当前绩效考核中存在五大问题:理念错位、指标固化、方法误用、反馈缺失和结果同化,因此需要建立全面绩效管理体系,现代绩效管理是走出传统绩效考核困境的必然路径。从传统绩效考核到现代绩效管理是管理方式的深刻变革,体现了人本管理的思想、渗透了过程管理的理念、凸显了沟通激励的功能、强化了团队绩效的作用。     

集体合同履行难原因浅析

通过平等协商签订集体合同是工会维护职工合法权益的重要途径和有效手段,但是履行难的问题已经对集体合同制度的顺利实施构成了很大的障碍。解决这一难题,对维护我国和谐、稳定的劳动关系、实现工会维权职能有重大意义。     

论行政强制执行模式的完善

通过对我国现有的“以申请司法机关执行为主,以行政机关执行为辅”的行政强制执行模式的分析,指出现行行政强制执行模式的弊端,主张建立“以行政机关执行为主,以司法机关执行为辅”的新型模式,并试图提供保障新型模式运行的一系列配套措施。     

经营者报酬与公司绩效相关性实证研究

经营者激励是研究委托代理中的关键问题,而经营者报酬水平与公司绩效之间的相关性大小将决定着激励机制对经营者所发挥的激励效果。采用计量经济学的方法对我国上市公司经营者报酬与公司绩效之间的关系进行实证研究,可得出二者之间呈现弱相关性的结论。应实施创新性激励方案,设计合理有效的绩效评价指标体系作为对策。