Cookie tracking notice
Are we allowed to crumble with cookies and anonymous tracking?

We use cookies on our website. Some of them are essential for the operation of the site (so called session cookies), while others help us to improve this site and the user experience (tracking cookies). We use the application Matomo and the external service etracker to analyze your behavior on our website anonymously. Because we value your privacy, we are here with asking your permission to use the following technologies. You can change your settings any time via this link or the menu item in footer menu. For more information visit our Data Policy

Essays in the Economics of Sanitation and Human Capital in Developing Countries

Spears, D. (2013)

Published in: 2013
Pages: 148

Publisher:
ProQuest LLC

Author:
Spears, D.

Uploaded by:
SuSanA Admin

Partner profile:
common upload


5126 Views
18 Downloads


 Location of library entry

Content - Summary

This thesis is a collection of three essays in the empirical economics of sanitation, open defecation, and child well-being in developing countries. Physical height is an important economic variable reflecting health and human capital. Puzzlingly, however, differences in average height across developing countries are not well explained by differences in wealth. In particular, children in India are shorter, on average, than children in Africa who are poorer, on average. This paradox has been called “the Asian enigma” and has received much attention from economists. Chapter one provides the first documentation of a quantitatively important international gradient between child height and sanitation. I apply three complementary empirical strategies to identify the association between sanitation and child height: country-level regressions across 140 country-years in 65 developing countries; within-country analysis of differences over time within Indian districts; and econometric decomposition of the India-Africa height difference in child-level data. Open defecation, which is exceptionally widespread in India, can account for much or all of the excess stunting in India.
Chapter two studies the Indian government’s Total Sanitation Campaign, which offered local government agents a large ex post monetary incentive to eliminate open defecation. I use two strategies to estimate the program’s effect on children’s health: first, heterogeneity in the timing of program implementation across districts, and second, a discontinuity in the monetary incentive to village governments. On average, the program caused a decrease in infant mortality and an increase in children’s height. Importantly, this paper studies a full-scale program implemented by a large bureaucracy with limited capacity. In the context of governance constraints, incentivizing local government agents can be effective. Chapter three is coauthored with Jeffrey Hammer. We study a randomized controlled trial of a village-level sanitation program, implemented in one district by the government of Maharashtra. The program caused a large but plausible average increase in child height. Unusually, the original World Bank evaluation team also collected data in districts where iii the government planned but ultimately did not conduct an experiment, permitting us to analyze how the set of villages eligible for randomization into the treatment group might shape research findings.

Bibliographic information

Spears, D. (2013). Essays in the Economics of Sanitation and Human Capital in Developing Countries. ProQuest LLC

Filter tags

East Asia & Pacific English Rural Sub-Saharan Africa

Download

Essays in the Economics of Sanitation and Human Capital in Developing Countries

Format: pdf file
Size: 1.22 MB

Share this page on    


Follow us on    

SuSanA Partners  currently 400 partners

Networks Circle

 

Latest SuSanA Blog Articles

SuSanA Blog »

SuSanA newsletter

Stay informed about the activities of SuSanA and its partners. The SuSanA newsletter is sent out around four times per year. It contains information about news, events, new partners, projects, discussions and publications of the SuSanA network.

Subscribe to newsletter »

 


close  

 

Resources and publications

Our library has more than 3,000 publications, factsheets, presentations, drawings etc. from many different organisations. It continues to grow thanks to the contributions from our partners.

Add item to library »

The three links below take you to special groups of items in the library for more convenient access:

Projects

The project database contains nearly 400 sanitation projects of many different organizations dealing with research, implementation, advocacy, capacity development etc. Advanced filtering functions and a global map are also available. Information on how and why this database was created is here.

People working for SuSanA partners can add their own projects through their partner profile page. You might need your SuSanA login upgraded for this purpose. Please contact us if you would like to add a project.


Trainings, conference and events materials

Missed important conferences or courses? Catch up by using their materials for self study. These materials have been kindly provided by SuSanA partners.

Shit flow diagrams, excreta flow diagrams (293 SFDs worldwide)

Shit flow diagrams (SFDs) help to visualize excreta management in urban settings. Access SFDs and more through the SFD Portal.

Emersan eCompendium

Humanitarian Sanitation Hub

Sanitation Workers Knowledge and Learning Hub

 


close  

 

Discussion forum

Share knowledge, exchange experiences, discuss challenges, make announcements, ask questions and more. Hint: Your discussion forum login is the same as your SuSanA login. More about the forum's philosophy »


Integrated content

We are hosting content from some other communities of practice and information-sharing portals. This section also provides a link to SuSanA's Sanitation Wikipedia initiative.

Suggest content to add »

SuSanA partners

Not yet a SuSanA partner? Show your organisation's support to SuSanA's vision and engage in  knowledge sharing by becoming partners.

Apply to become a partner »


Individual membership

Register as an individual member of SuSanA free of charge. As a member you can interact with thousands of sanitation enthusiasts on the discussion forum.  You can also get engaged in one of our 13 working groups and our regional chapters. Our FAQs explain the benefits further.

By getting a SuSanA login you can fully participate in the SuSanA community!

Register as a member

Login


Forgot your password?
Forgot your username?

 


close