Kresch, Evan Plous.  <br/><br/>
The back stops where? Federalist, uncertainty, and investment in the Brazilian water and sanitation sector  

 - American Economic Journal Economic Policy   
 - 12(3), Aug, 2020: p.374-401 
<br/><br/> 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. –Reproduced