Bright Lines, Risk Beliefs, and Risk Avoidance: Evidence from a Randomized Intervention in Bangladesh

Lori Bennear, Alessandro Tarozzi, Alexander Pfaff, H. B. Soumya, Kazi Matin Ahmed and Alexander van Geen

No 10-77, Working Papers from Duke University, Department of Economics

Abstract: We randomized 43 villages in Bangladesh to receive information on well-water arsenic that emphasized water safety relative to the national standard (bright-line message) or provided additional information on how risks from exposure increase with arsenic levels (gradient message). The gradient message led to 50% more switching of water sources when the arsenic level was moderately unsafe, but 40% less switching at high arsenic levels. The differences in behavior are at least partially explained by differences in risk perception that developed after the information campaign.

Keywords: Beliefs; Information; Health risk; Arsenic; Drinking water; Bangladesh (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O12 Q50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=1695115 main text

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:duk:dukeec:10-77

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Duke University, Department of Economics Department of Economics Duke University 213 Social Sciences Building Box 90097 Durham, NC 27708-0097.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Department of Economics Webmaster ().