Public Water Supply and Individual Water Handling: Perceived Substitutes and Revealed Complements

Abstract

We analyze the impact of community water supply and individual water handling on water quality and health, applying a difference-in-difference analysis in combination with a randomized control trial in rural Benin. We find that households perceive improved water supply and improved water handling as substitutes to achieve high water quality, i.e. the propensity of households to engage in improved water handling decreases with the installation of modern public water technologies. The revealed effects are complementary, i.e. only in combination with improved water handling does improved water supply lead to a decrease in E.coli contamination of the water consumed in the household (- 89 percent) and a decrease in diarrheal incidence among children (-20 percent).

Keywords: Water Supply, Water Handling, Health, Water Quality, RCT, Diff-in-Diff

JEL Classification: I15, I38, D12