The Impact of Piped Water Provision on Infant Mortality in Brazil: A Quantile Panel Data Approach

We examine the impact of piped water on the under-1 infant mortality rate(IMR) in Brazil using a novel econometric procedure for the estimation of quantiletreatment effects with panel data. The provision of piped water in Brazil is highlycorrelated with other observable and unobservable determinants of IMR – thelatter leading to an important source of bias. Instruments for piped waterprovision are not readily available, and fixed effects to control for time invariantcorrelated unobservables are invalid in simple quantile regression framework.Using the quantile panel data procedure in Chen and Khan (2007), our estimatesindicate that the provision of piped water reduces infant mortality by significantlymore at the higher conditional quantiles of the IMR than at the lower conditionalquantiles (except for cases of extreme underdevelopment). These results implythat targeting piped water intervention in areas with higher conditional quantilesof the IMR, when accompanied by a basic level of other public health inputs, canachieve significantly greater reductions in infant mortality.