Effective actions, boundaries, and precision calculations of Casimir energies

We perform the matching required to compute the leading effective boundary contribution to the QED Lagrangian in the presence of a conducting surface, once the electron is integrated out. Our result resolves a confusion in the literature concerning the interpretation of the leading such correction to the Casimir energy. It also provides a useful theoretical laboratory for brane-world calculations in which kinetic terms are generated on the brane, since a lot is known about QED near boundaries.