The Buck Stops Where? Federalism, Uncertainty, and Investment in the Brazilian Water and Sanitation Sector
研究了巴西水和卫生部门中，不同层级政府共享服务提供权导致的监管不确定性如何影响投资，发现法律改革消除接管威胁后，市政公司投资几乎翻倍，改善了系统接入并降低了儿童死亡率。
This paper documents how regulatory uncertainty may undermine public service when different levels of government share a mandate on public service provision. I examine the Brazilian water and sanitation sector, which presents a natural experiment of shared provision between state and municipal companies. Using a difference-in-differences framework, I study a legal reform that clarified the relationship between municipal and state providers and eliminated any takeover threat by state companies. I find that after the reform, municipal companies almost doubled their total system investment, leading to significant increases in system access and decreases in child mortality.