Expansion of Piped Water and Sewer Networks: The Effects of Regulation

Carolina Tojal Ramos Dos Santos and Bruna Morais Guidetti

No 14191, IDB Publications (Working Papers) from Inter-American Development Bank

Abstract: This paper investigates strategies to expand piped water and sewer through private providers. Using billing data from a major provider in Brazil and a structural model of consumer sanitation demand and service expansion, we assess the viability of connection targets and the welfare effects of connection subsidies and price incentives. We find that universal connection targets are largely unfeasible due to low sewer take-up. Combining connection subsidies with higher sewer prices boosts expansion and adoption but requires government funding. Charging consumers upon sewer availability is self-sustaining and promotes adoption and expansion, but it shifts costs to households.

JEL-codes: L51 L95 Q25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com and nep-reg
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://publications.iadb.org/publications/english ... ts-of-Regulation.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:idb:brikps:14191

DOI: 10.18235/0013622

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IDB Publications (Working Papers) from Inter-American Development Bank Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Felipe Herrera Library ().