Individual Perceptions and the Performance of Community-Based Drinking Water Organizations
Abstract
This paper analyses the underlying factors affecting people’s satisfaction with drinking water provided by community-based organizations in rural Costa Rica. These organizations provide water to more than 60 percent of the country’s rural population, but there is great disparity in the quality of water provided. Using an ordered Probit regression and data from 41 villages, we studied how characteristics of the water supply infrastructure, the governance structure, and the attributes of local people affect consumers’perception of water quality at home. We found that size and age of the infrastructure, accountability mechanisms, public disclosure of information, and demand responsiveness, as well as the human capital of the members of the local water committee, are the main predictors of the capacity of local organizations to satisfy consumers’ perceptions of water quality.Download Info
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Paper provided by Resources For the Future in its series Discussion Papers with number dp-11-07-efd.Length:
Date of creation: 01 Jul 2011
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Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-11-07-efd
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Related research
Keywords: local institutions; common-pool resources; SES framework; water quality;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- Q25 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Water
- Q28 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Government Policy
- D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, and Operations
- D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General
References
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