Effective Demand for In-Line Chlorination Bundled with Rental Housing in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Delivering
safe water in cities of lower- and middle-income countries
remains elusive even where there is a piped supply. Passive, in-line
chlorination upstream of the point of water collection reduces child
diarrhea without the behavior change required for point-of-use water
treatment products or manual chlorine dispensers. We conducted a price
experiment to measure effective demand (willingness and ability to
pay) for an in-line chlorination service using tablet chlorinators
among 196 landlords of rental housing properties in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
We offered a 12-month subscription using Becker–DeGroot–Marschak
auctions with real money payments. The service consistently delivered
chlorinated water and satisfied tenants. Landlords’ effective
demand for in-line chlorination was similar to or greater than that
for point-of-use treatment products and manual chlorine dispensers
previously documented among Dhaka households. Over the service period,
landlords renting to low-income households had lower effective demand
than those renting to middle-income households despite similar initial
rates of payment across both groups. Making in-line chlorination financially
viable for the lowest-income consumers would likely require service
cost reductions, subsidies, or both. Our findings suggest that even
revealed preference experiments may overestimate the effective demand
needed to sustain water supply improvements, especially in low-income
populations, if they only measure demand once.