Quality of Government and Access to Safe Water

Abstract

According to a conservative estimation by the World Health Organization, 1.2 billion people lack access to sufficient quantities of safe water, and 2.6 billion people are without adequate sanitation. Consequently, 80 percent of all illnesses in the developing world are estimated to be the result of waterborne diseases claiming the lives of 1, 8 million children every year. This paper investigates to what extent this problem is related to the quality of government (QoG) institutions. Water quality measured as human access to safe drinking water. The central question is if there is an independent effect of quality of government besides the effects of democratic rule and good economic resources. Taking into consideration the interaction effect between QoG and economic prosperity, we find that there is an independent effect of government effectiveness on the access to safe drinking water, especially in poor countries.