Restrictions to the Expansion of the Investments in Brazilian\'s Sanitation: Deficit of Access and Performance of the Services Offered.

Author(s)

Carlos Cesar Santejo Saiani

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Ribeirão Preto.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade de Ribeirão Preto (PCARP/BC)
• Defense date: 2007-04-20

Examining board members

Rudinei Toneto Junior; Paulo Furquim de Azevedo; Elaine Toldo Pazello

• Advisor: Rudinei Toneto Junior

Abstract

Brazil presents elevated access deficit to basic sanitation services. Due to the positive impact of these services on economic development, it is fundamentally important that generalized access be achieved. However, a number of factors restrict investment expansion in this area: absence of clear politics, competency fragmentation, absence of specific regulations, inefficiency in great part of services offered, strong public presence in the area, all of which make it unviable because of indebtedness limits, superavit goals and credit contingency to the public sector. Then, within this context, the principal aim of this paper is to identify and evaluate the factors which restrict investment expansion in Brazilian basic sanitation. At first, principal institutional problems were discussed; afterwards domestic deficit access was distinguished by descriptive analyses and econometrics estimates - Probit method. It was verified that this deficit is closely related to the consumers\' income profile - economical scale and density in the sector, which leads to strong restriction in investment expansion. Finally, the performance of the different types of services offered was compared in several aspects. The data indicate that more decentralization and non-state conditions could bring benefits to the efficiency and improve service coverage. (AU)