Participatory Governance and Public Service Provision

Sammanfattning: How do Community Contribution Requirements Affect Local Public Good Provision? Experimental Evidence from Safe Water Sources in Bangladesh We exploit the random assignment of communities selected to receive a safe drinking water program to various contribution requirements: cash, labor or no requirement to contribute. Imposing a cash contribution requirement greatly decreases program take-up, while imposing a labour contribution does not. Program impact is correspondingly lower under the cash contribution requirement than under the labour contribution requirement or contribution waiver. The cash contribution requirement screens out communities with low arsenic contamination, but screening does not lead to increased treatment effects on the treated. Our results suggest that there are substantial welfare gains to be made in such projects in poor communities by allowing households to contribute in labour rather than cash.