TY  - JOUR
AU  - Kremer,Michael
AU  - Miguel,Edward
TI  - The Illusion of Sustainability
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10324
PY  - 2004
Y2  - February 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10324
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10324.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Michael Kremer
Harvard University
Department of Economics
Littauer Center M20
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-9145
Fax: 617/495-7730
E-Mail: mkremer@fas.harvard.edu

Edward Miguel
Department of Economics
University of California, Berkeley
530 Evans Hall #3880
Berkeley, CA 94720
Tel: 510/642-7162
Fax: 510/642-6615
E-Mail: emiguel@econ.berkeley.edu
AB  - The history of foreign development assistance is one of movement away from addressing immediate needs and toward focusing on the underlying causes of poverty. A recent manifestation is the move towards  sustainability,' which stresses community mobilization, education, and cost-recovery. This stands in contrast to the traditional economic analysis of development projects, with its focus on providing public goods and correcting externalities. We examine evidence from randomized evaluations on strategies for combating intestinal worms, which affect one in four people worldwide. Providing medicine to treat worms was extremely cost effective, although medicine must be provided twice per year indefinitely to keep children worm-free. An effort to promote sustainability by educating Kenyan schoolchildren on worm prevention was ineffective, and a  mobilization' intervention from psychology failed to boost deworming drug take-up. Take-up was highly sensitive to drug cost: a small increase in cost led to an 80 percent reduction in take-up (relative to free treatment). The results suggest that, in the context we examine, the pursuit of sustainability may be an illusion, and that in the short-run, at least, external subsidies will remain necessary.
ER  -