Impact Evaluation of Urban Infrastructure Projects

• Grant number: 23/14094-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: January 01, 2024
• Status: Discontinued
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Economics - Regional and Urban Economics
• Principal Investigator: Daniel Ferreira Pereira Gonçalves da Mata
• Grantee: Pedro Augusto Costa Oliveira
• Host Institution: Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo (EAESP). Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 21/11959-3 - CITIES: Center for Innovation in Urban Public Policies, AP.CCD
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/13220-3 - Public Housing, Climate Adaptation Policies, and Infant Health in Brazil, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

The lack of access to safely managed drinking water and proper sanitation affects more than 2 billion people, mainly in low- and middle-income countries. Lacking these two services is associated with waterborne diseases -- especially diarrhea and intestinal worms --, malnutrition, and a broad range of socioeconomic conditions, such as lower school attendance, bad environmental management, and greater economic inequality. Particularly vulnerable to the effects of lack of sanitation are the poor, elderly, young children, and pregnant women (and their fetuses). These problems have led to interventions in several developing countries focusing on improving water quality and sanitation access. This project aims to examine how in utero exposure to better sanitation affects health at birth. To this end, this research will gather several administrative data, with information on Sanitation and Birth Records (SINASC) between 2005 and 2020. To estimate the effects of sanitation on infant health outcomes, we will employ an empirical strategy validated by the literature, which consists of comparing children who received the treatment (sanitation) while in utero with children who received the treatment in the 40 weeks following the end of a full-term pregnancy, controlling by fixed effects and mother's socioeconomic characteristics. This project aims to contribute to the literature that examines how environmental shocks in utero are related to infant health, and more specifically, aims to add to the literature evidence on the impact of a more general environmental shock (and, therefore, a less rare event) on infant health.