 To use financial incentives or not? Insights from experiments in encouraging sanitation investments in four countriesSanghmitra Gautam, Michael Gechter, Raymond Guiteras and Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak World Development, 2025, vol. 187, issue C Abstract: We conduct a systematic re-analysis of intervention-based studies that promote hygienic latrines and evaluate via experimental methods. We impose systematic inclusion criteria to identify such studies and compile their microdata to harmonize outcome measures, covariates, and estimands across studies. We then re-analyze their data to report metrics that are consistently defined and measured across studies. We compare the relative effectiveness of different classes of interventions implemented in overlapping ways across four countries: community-level demand encouragement, sanitation subsidies, product information campaigns, and microcredit to finance product purchases. In the sample of studies meeting our inclusion criteria, interventions that offer financial benefits generally outperform information and education campaigns in increasing adoption of improved sanitation. Contrary to a policy concern about sustainability, financial incentives do not undermine usage of adopted latrines. Effects vary by share of women in the household, in both positive and negative directions, and differ little by poverty status. Keywords: Sanitation; Impact evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:187:y:2025:i:c:s0305750x24002614 DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106791 Access Statistics for this article World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes More articles in World Development from Elsevier |
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