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Political determinants of investment in water and sanitation: Evidence from Brazilian elections

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  • Kresch, Evan Plous
  • Schneider, Rodrigo

Abstract

This paper studies the extent to which political determinants play a role in the investment decisions for water and sanitation (WS) services. We focus on the political alignment between local and state officials using the outcomes of close mayoral elections in Brazil. We find that mayors of municipalities with self-run WS companies aligned with the state governor significantly decreased investment in their WS systems compared to unaligned mayors, providing evidence that politics plays a role in the running of public utilities.

Suggested Citation

  • Kresch, Evan Plous & Schneider, Rodrigo, 2020. "Political determinants of investment in water and sanitation: Evidence from Brazilian elections," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:189:y:2020:i:c:s0165176520300586
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2020.109041
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    9. Evan Plous Kresch, 2020. "The Buck Stops Where? Federalism, Uncertainty, and Investment in the Brazilian Water and Sanitation Sector," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 374-401, August.
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    15. Matias D. Cattaneo & Michael Jansson & Xinwei Ma, 2018. "Manipulation testing based on density discontinuity," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 18(1), pages 234-261, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Diloá Athias & Rodrigo Schneider, 2021. "The impact of political representation on the provision of public goods and services," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(2), pages 367-381, June.
    2. Yujing Huang, 2022. "The Impact of Government Official Assessment on Ecological Poverty Alleviation: Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(6), pages 1-19, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Water & sanitation; Public utilities; Development; Federalism; Elections; Regression discontinuity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H73 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Interjurisdictional Differentials and Their Effects
    • L95 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Gas Utilities; Pipelines; Water Utilities

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