The Illusion of Sustainability
We use a randomized evaluation of a Kenyan deworming program to estimate peer effects in technology adoption and to shed light on foreign aid donors' movement towards sustainable community provision of public goods. Deworming is a public good since much of its social benefit comes through reduced disease transmission. People were less likely to take deworming if their direct first-order or indirect second-order social contacts were exposed to deworming. Efforts to replace subsidies with sustainable worm control measures were ineffective: a drug cost-recovery program reduced take-up 80 percent; health education did not affect behavior, and a mobilization intervention failed. At least in this context, it appears unrealistic for a one-time intervention to generate sustainable voluntary local public goods provision. Copyright by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Year of publication: |
2007
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Authors: | Kremer, Michael ; Miguel, Edward |
Published in: |
The Quarterly Journal of Economics. - MIT Press. - Vol. 122.2007, 3, p. 1007-1065
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Publisher: |
MIT Press |
Saved in:
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