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 quantile treatment effects with panel data. The provision of piped water in Brazil is highly correlated with other observable and unobservable determinants of IMR – the latter leading to an important source of bias. Instruments for piped water provision are not readily available, and fixed effects to control for time invariant correlated unobservables are invalid in simple quantile regression framework. Using the quantile panel data procedure in Chen and Khan (2007), our estimates indicate that the provision of piped water reduces infant mortality by significantly more at the higher conditional quantiles of the IMR than at the lower conditional quantiles (except for cases of extreme underdevelopment). These results imply that targeting piped water intervention in areas with higher conditional quantiles of the IMR, when accompanied by a basic level of other public health inputs, can achieve significantly greater reductions in infant mortality.

JEL Codes: I18, H41, Q53, Q56, Q58

Keywords: Infant mortality, piped water supply, quantile fixed effects, heterogenous program impact, distribution of public goods