[Back to
search results]

Water and Growth

Description of the project:
- no english description available -

Clean water is the most basic input to human life; where it is lacking, people become ill and quite a few eventually die. 2.5 billion people worldwide have no access to improved sanitation facilities, 1.1 billion have no facilities at all, and 780 million do not have access to clean water. The human consequences of these figures are disastrous; the economic gain of reducing the number of people without access to safe water and sanitation by 50% was estimated at 102 billion US$ alone in the year 2000. This project analyzes the effect of access to safe water and sanitation on economic growth. Using a panel of 75 developing and threshold countries, we show that the lack of access to safe water and sanitation diminishes growth significantly: a one standard deviation lower share of popu-lation with access to clean water (i.e. 18 percentage points) reduces growth performance by around 1.23 percentage points. Lower access rates to appropriate sanitation have a similar effect. The growth-enhancing effect of safe water and proper sanitation works predominantly through higher productivity rather than through increased factor accumulation. The project demonstrates that enhancing public health by improving access to safe water and sanitation is a very effective instrument for stimulating growth and reducing poverty. Empirical evidence of the effect of access to safe water and sanitation on economic growth has been missing so far.

contact person: Dipl.-Volksw. Julia Alexa Barde
Phone: 0761 203-9327
Email: julia.alexa.barde@vwl.uni-freiburg.de
Runtime:
Start of project: 01.04.2010
End of project: 31.01.2015
Project Management:
Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg
Schulze G
Abteilung für Internationale Wirtschaftspolitik
am Institut für Allgemeine Wirtschaftsforschung
Platz der Alten Synagoge
79085 Freiburg i. Br.
Germany

Phone: 0761-203 2342
Fax: 0761-203 2414
Email: judith.mueller@vwl.uni-freiburg.de
http://www.vwl.uni-freiburg.de/iwipol/sopo.htm
Actual Research Report

Contributors:
  • Barde J
  • Schulze G
  • Karsch H
Keywords:
    Access to clean water and proper sanitation, economic growth, water and growth
project-related publications:
  • Barde, Julia A., Karsch, Henning, Schulze, Günther G.: The Impact of Access to Clean Water and Sanitation on Growth - Evidence from Developing Countries. mimeo, 2012.