Village sanitation and children's human capital: evidence from a randomized experiment by the Maharashtra government

Jeffrey Hammer and Dean Spears

No 6580, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: Open defecation is exceptionally widespread in India, a county with puzzlingly high rates of child stunting. This paper reports 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 (95 percent confidence interval [0.04 to 0.61] standard deviations), which is an important marker of human capital. The results demonstrate sanitation externalities: an effect even on children in households that did not adopt latrines. Unusually, surveyors also collected data in districts where the government planned but ultimately did not conduct an experiment, permitting analysis of the importance of the set eligible for randomization.

Keywords: Health Monitoring&Evaluation; Disease Control&Prevention; Population Policies; Hygiene Promotion and Social Marketing; Early Child and Children's Health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-08-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-exp and nep-hrm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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