IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/dpr/wpaper/1210.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Unintended Consequences of Sanitation Investment: Negative Externalities on Water Quality and Health in India

Author

Listed:
  • Kazuki Motohashi

Abstract

Developing countries have increased sanitation investment to reduce diarrheal diseases. However, the direct health benefits of latrine construction can be offset by water pollution externalities due to poor treatment of fecal sludge. I estimate these negative externalities of a sanitation policy in India that subsidized the construction of over 100 million latrines. Exploiting geographical variation in soil characteristics and the differential increase in latrine coverage across districts, I find that the policy increases river pollution by 72%. While it reduces diarrheal mortality overall, this positive health effect is two-thirds smaller in areas with lower capacities for treatment of fecal sludge where water pollution externalities are consequently larger.

Suggested Citation

  • Kazuki Motohashi, 2023. "Unintended Consequences of Sanitation Investment: Negative Externalities on Water Quality and Health in India," ISER Discussion Paper 1210, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    • Handle: RePEc:dpr:wpaper:1210
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.iser.osaka-u.ac.jp/library/dp/2023/DP1210.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Greenstone & Rema Hanna, 2014. "Environmental Regulations, Air and Water Pollution, and Infant Mortality in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 3038-3072, October.
    2. Esther Duflo, 2001. "Schooling and Labor Market Consequences of School Construction in Indonesia: Evidence from an Unusual Policy Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 795-813, September.
    3. Michael Geruso & Dean Spears, 2018. "Neighborhood Sanitation and Infant Mortality," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 125-162, April.
    4. Marcella Alsan & Claudia Goldin, 2019. "Watersheds in Child Mortality: The Role of Effective Water and Sewerage Infrastructure, 1880–1920," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(2), pages 586-638.
    5. Mateus Dias & Rudi Rocha & Rodrigo R Soares, 2023. "Down the River: Glyphosate Use in Agriculture and Birth Outcomes of Surrounding Populations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(6), pages 2943-2981.
    6. Daniel Bennett, 2012. "Does Clean Water Make You Dirty?: Water Supply and Sanitation in the Philippines," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(1), pages 146-173.
    7. Cameron, Lisa & Santos, Paulo & Thomas, Milan & Albert, Jeff, 2021. "Sanitation, financial incentives and health spillovers: A cluster randomised trial," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    8. Cameron, Lisa & Gertler, Paul & Shah, Manisha & Alzua, Maria Laura & Martinez, Sebastian & Patil, Sumeet, 2022. "The dirty business of eliminating open defecation: The effect of village sanitation on child height from field experiments in four countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    9. Hoyt Bleakley, 2007. "Disease and Development: Evidence from Hookworm Eradication in the American South," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(1), pages 73-117.
    10. Do, Quy-Toan & Joshi, Shareen & Stolper, Samuel, 2018. "Can environmental policy reduce infant mortality? Evidence from the Ganga Pollution Cases," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 306-325.
    11. Avraham Ebenstein, 2012. "The Consequences of Industrialization: Evidence from Water Pollution and Digestive Cancers in China," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(1), pages 186-201, February.
    12. Esther Duflo & Michael Greenstone & Raymond Guiteras & Thomas Clasen, 2015. "Toilets Can Work: Short and Medium Run Health Impacts of Addressing Complementarities and Externalities in Water and Sanitation," NBER Working Papers 21521, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Dias, Mateus & Rocha, Rudi & Soares, Rodrigo R., 2019. "Glyphosate Use in Agriculture and Birth Outcomes of Surrounding Populations," IZA Discussion Papers 12164, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Patrick Flynn & Michelle M. Marcus, 2021. "A Watershed Moment: The Clean Water Act and Birth Weight," NBER Working Papers 29152, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Claire Lepault, 2023. "Is urban wastewater treatment effective in India? Evidence from water quality and infant mortality," CIRED Working Papers hal-04232407, HAL.
    2. Hoehn-Velasco, Lauren, 2018. "Explaining declines in US rural mortality, 1910–1933: The role of county health departments," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 42-72.
    3. Garg, Teevrat & Hamilton, Stuart E. & Hochard, Jacob P. & Kresch, Evan Plous & Talbot, John, 2018. "(Not so) gently down the stream: River pollution and health in Indonesia," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 35-53.
    4. Sonia R. Bhalotra & Alberto Diaz-Cayeros & Grant Miller & Alfonso Miranda & Atheendar S. Venkataramani, 2017. "Urban Water Disinfection and Mortality Decline in Developing Countries," NBER Working Papers 23239, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Hossain, Md Amzad & Mahajan, Kanika & Sekhri, Sheetal, 2022. "Access to toilets and violence against women," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    6. Alex Hollingsworth & Krzysztof Karbownik & Melissa A. Thomasson & Anthony Wray, 2022. "The Gift of a Lifetime: The Hospital, Modern Medicine, and Mortality," NBER Working Papers 30663, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. David A Keiser & Joseph S Shapiro, 2019. "Consequences of the Clean Water Act and the Demand for Water Quality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(1), pages 349-396.
    8. David A. Keiser & Joseph K. Shapiro, 2018. "Consequences of the Clean Water Act and the Demand for Water Quality," Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) Publications 17-wp571, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    9. Spears, Dean, 2020. "Exposure to open defecation can account for the Indian enigma of child height," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    10. Deepak Saraswat, 2018. "Gender Composition of Children and Sanitation Behavior In India," Working papers 2018-12, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    11. Chen, Shiyi & Jiang, Lingduo & Liu, Wanlin & Song, Hong, 2022. "Fireworks regulation, air pollution, and public health: Evidence from China," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    12. Evan Plous Kresch & Molly Lipscomb & Laura Schechter, 2020. "Externalities and Spillovers from Sanitation and Waste Management in Urban and Rural Neighborhoods," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(3), pages 395-420, September.
    13. Michael Geruso & Dean Spears, 2018. "Neighborhood Sanitation and Infant Mortality," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 125-162, April.
    14. Kalra, Aarushi, 2021. "A 'Ghetto' of One's Own: Communal Violence, Residential Segregation and Group Education Outcomes in India," SocArXiv rzjct, Center for Open Science.
    15. Schultz, T. Paul, 2010. "Population and Health Policies," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4785-4881, Elsevier.
    16. Karthik Muralidharan & Nishith Prakash, 2017. "Cycling to School: Increasing Secondary School Enrollment for Girls in India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 321-350, July.
    17. Augsburg, Britta & Rodríguez-Lesmes, Paul Andrés, 2018. "Sanitation and child health in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 22-39.
    18. Daniel Gallardo‐Albarrán, 2020. "Sanitary infrastructures and the decline of mortality in Germany, 1877–1913," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(3), pages 730-757, August.
    19. Aggarwal, Khushboo & Barua, Rashmi & Vidal-Fernandez, Marian, 2024. "Still Waters Run Deep: Groundwater Contamination and Education Outcomes in India," IZA Discussion Papers 16863, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Myck, Michal & Najsztub, Mateusz, 2019. "Policy in the Pipeline: Identifying Regional Public Investment Priorities Using a Natural Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 12220, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dpr:wpaper:1210. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Librarian (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/isosujp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.