SPRING CLEANING: RURAL WATER IMPACTS, VALUATION, AND PROPERTY RIGHTS INSTITUTIONS

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Kremer, Michael; Leino, Jessica; Miguel, Edward; Zwane, Alix Peterson
• 署名单位: Harvard University; Brookings Institution; National Bureau of Economic Research; The World Bank; University of California System; University of California Berkeley; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• 刊物名称: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-5533
• DOI: 10.1093/qje/qjq010
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 145-205
• 关键词: Contingent valuation; diarrhea; HEALTH; sanitation; interventions; BEHAVIOR; HYGIENE; MODEL

摘要

Using a randomized evaluation in Kenya, we measure health impacts of spring protection, an investment that improves source water quality. We also estimate households' valuation of spring protection and simulate the welfare impacts of alternatives to the current system of common property rights in water, which limits incentives for private investment. Spring infrastructure investments reduce fecal contamination by 66%, but household water quality improves less, due to recontamination. Child diarrhea falls by one quarter. Travel-cost based revealed preference estimates of households' valuations are much smaller than both stated preference valuations and health planners' valuations, and are consistent with models in which the demand for health is highly income elastic. We estimate that private property norms would generate little additional investment while imposing large static costs due to above-marginal-cost pricing, private property would function better at higher income levels or under water scarcity, and alternative institutions could yield Pareto improvements. JEL Codes: C93, H75, O13, Q25, Q51.