An empirical analysis of household choices among water storage devices

This paper investigates factors underlying the household decision to utilize a variety of water storage devices in the small, poor municipality of San Lorenzo, Guatemala. Seemingly unrelated probit models were estimated to account for potential interdependence among different types of storage devices. Almost all sampled households store water at home in a variety of devices such as buckets, barrels, cisterns, and roof tanks. Estimation results indicate that the decision to use water storage devices is related to household income, and that the direction of income effects varies according to the type of storage device. On the other hand, water service interruptions were found statistically significant only for the household choice of using barrels. Findings also indicate that small devices (e.g. buckets) and barrels are used in a complementary fashion. In contrast, large devices (i.e. roof tanks and cisterns) are deemed substitutes for small devices and barrels.