Devoto, Florencia, Esther Duflo, Pascaline Dupas, William Pariente, and Vincent Pons. "Happiness on Tap: Piped Water Adoption in Urban Morocco." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 4, no. 4 (November 2012): 68–99.
Connecting private dwellings to the water main is expensive and typically cannot be publicly financed. We show that households' willingness to pay for a private connection is high when it can be purchased on credit, not because a connection improves health but because it increases the time available for leisure and reduces inter- and intra-household conflicts on water matters, leading to sustained improvements in well-being. Our results suggest that facilitating access to credit for households to finance lump sum quality-of-life investments can significantly increase welfare, even if those investments do not result in any health or income gains.
Connecting private dwellings to the water main is expensive and typically cannot be publicly financed. We show that households' willingness to pay for a private connection is high when it can be purchased on credit, not because a connection improves health but because it increases the time available for leisure and reduces inter- and intra-household conflicts on water matters, leading to sustained improvements in well-being. Our results suggest that facilitating access to credit for households to finance lump sum quality-of-life investments can significantly increase welfare, even if those investments do not result in any health or income gains.