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Direct and indirect effects of a massive piped water expansion on child‐related outcomes
Author(s) -
Chong Alberto,
Galdo Virgilio
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
review of development economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.531
H-Index - 50
eISSN - 1467-9361
pISSN - 1363-6669
DOI - 10.1111/rode.12791
Subject(s) - sanitation , matching (statistics) , child mortality , quartile , economics , intervention (counseling) , average treatment effect , child labour , census , difference in differences , demographic economics , labour economics , propensity score matching , economic growth , psychology , medicine , environmental health , developing country , econometrics , population , gold mining , confidence interval , chemistry , pathology , psychiatry
We explore the effects of a massive water supply and sanitation expansion on child mortality, schooling, and child labor in Ecuador. We combine census data with project administrative information to identify treated dwellings. A matching differences‐in‐differences estimator is used to identify treatment effects. We find a child mortality reduction of about 8.1%, an increase in children formal schooling of 1.3%, and a reduction in child labor of 13.7%, all attributable to the intervention. We also find heterogeneous treatment effects suggesting that those in the poorest quartiles benefit the least from the intervention. However, even in the latter case, if a woman had at least primary education, the household may still enjoy benefits.