Sustaining resource-oriented sanitation behaviors through informal institutions: Evidence from China

Promoting safe sanitation behaviors is crucial to public health and resource recovery. Previous studies have shown that mandatory formal institutions can contribute to behavioral changes for safe sanitation, however, the impacts of informal institutions remain less explored. This study focuses on the “Red and Black List”, a typical informal institution in China's ongoing Rural Toilet Revolution, which is built on an emerging social credit system in rural China that punishes negative behaviors using blacklists while rewards positive behaviors using redlists. Based on the survey data of 1820 rural households, this study uses the endogenous switching regression (ESR) model to quantify the impact of the “Red and Black List” on household sanitation behaviors (hygiene management, toilet maintenance and effluents recycling). The results show that households in the villages adopting the “Red and Black List” are 11.63%, 20.89% and 29.35% more likely to perform well in hygiene management, toilet maintenance and effluents recycling respectively. Such treatment effects are greater in the villages adopting the “Red and Black List” with material rewards. Moreover, the implementation of the “Red and Black List” significantly increases regular monitoring activities, professional codes provision and households' emotional affinity through which informal institutions could possibly promote desirable sanitation behaviors. Based on these findings, the policy recommendation is that informal institutions on sanitation should be established in local governments to contribute to the success of sanitation campaigns. •A typical informal institution in China's ongoing Rural Toilet Revolution was investigated.•Using home-based observation and self-reported data, three sanitation behaviors were constructed.•Informal institutions are found to play an important role on the governance of household sanitation behaviors.•Based on the institutional theory, three mechanisms driving the impacts are identified.