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- Cocociolo, Serera, et al.
(author)
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Time is not money : randomized experiment with community contribution requirements in cash and labour
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Other publication (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Development projects that set out to provide local public goods and services almost universally require communities to contribute collectively towards project costs. But despite the ubiquity of such requirements, we know little with certainty about their consequences, including whether consequences differ when communities contribute in cash or labour. Using a randomized experiment, we evaluate how requiring communities to contribute affects the impact of projects that aim to provide safe drinking water wells in rural Bangladesh. Cash contribution requirements strongly reduce take-up and impact relative to a contribution waiver. Labour contribution requirements with similar value if priced at the market wage do not, most likely because most households value their time below the market wage. These results suggest that in poor rural areas, where the monetary value of time is low, projects that require contributions may realize substantial welfare gains by replacing cash contribution requirements with labour contribution requirements. However, imposing any contribution requirement increases coordination and monitoring costs. After accounting for these costs, requiring communities to contribute decreases cost-effectiveness, undermining a central rationale for imposing such requirements.
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