Factors affecting nonpayment of water service by rural households in Nepal

Abstract

This paper applies ordinal logistic regression to a survey collected from 225 rural households across four different districts of Nepal to analyze the nonpayment behavior of households at rural water schemes. This study finds that non-payment behavior is highly influenced by a household’s perception of how others pay rather than their own paying ability. This shows that the trust issue, which stems from an apparent n-prisoners dilemma, negatively reinforces free-riding behavior among the households. Further, the study also indicates that cultural and geographical distribution influence households relative positions on the nonpayment spectrum.