**Table 2:** Summary Statistics

|Variable|obs|Mean|SD|Min.|Max.|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|People using sanitation services, total (share of population)|73|0.63|0.28|0.11|0.99|
|People using sanitation services, urban (share of urban population)|72|0.71|0.25|0.21|0.99|
|People using sanitation services, rural (share of rural population)|72|0.54|0.29|0.05|0.97|
|Rural-Urban Gap|72|0.17|0.12|-0.03|0.49|
|Voice and accountability index (lowest = -2.5 highest =2.5)|73|-0.41|0.69|-1.79|1.04|
|Mean year of schooling, 1900|73|0.27|0.39|0.01|1.52|
|Log GDP per capita|72|7.84|0.97|5.85|9.44|
|Log population density|73|4.20|1.10|1.26|7.04|

**Notes:** SD is the standard deviation of the variables. The mean difference (i.e., rural - urban gap) of 0.17 is statistically different from zero with _p_ -value of 0.0002. Source: Authors’ illustration from the World Development Indicators World Bank (2021)

Table 2 presents the summary of the data. The data are for 73 developing countries over the 2002 to 2020 period. We also report the country-by-country data for the four measures of the dependent variable used in our cross-sectional analysis in Table 3. We observe from Table 2 that, on average, 63% of the population in our sample has basic sanitation services. The standard deviation, at 28% is, however, relatively large, indicating high variability in the proportion of the population using basic sanitation across countries. In particular, several Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries in the sample, have less than 30% of their population using basic sanitation services. These countries include Sudan (29.1%), Cˆote d’Ivoire (27.8%), Zambia (27.7%), Malawi (24.1%), Mozambique (23.7%), the Democratic Republic of Congo (19.3%), Uganda (18.5%), Liberia (16.2%), Ghana (15.7%), Togo (14.2%), Sierra Leone (13.6%), Benin (13.2%), and Niger (10.7%) (see, Table 3). In contrast, there are countries in our sample with more than 90% basic sanitation services access and usage. Additionally, more than a third of countries in our sample have less than 50% of their population accessing and using sanitation services over the period. Finally, Table 2 reports the summary statistics for the standard control variables in our estimation—i.e., logarithm of GDP per capita and population density. The mean value of log GDP per capita is 7.84 with a standard deviation of 0.97 while that of lop population density is 4.20 with a standard error of 1.12. These suggest large variances in per capita income and population density across countries in our sample.

We now switch our attention to rural and urban access to sanitation. As shown in Table 2 the means of the percentage of people with access to sanitation in rural and urban areas are 54% and 71%, respectively, suggesting the existence of a rural-urban gap in access to sanitation. A simple t-test confirms that the rural-urban gap is statistically _−_ significant at conventional levels (mean difference = 0.17, _p_ value = 0.0002). The country-by-country summary in Table 3 provides a granular look and reinforces rural-urban inequality. With the exception of Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Jamaica, where the rural-urban gap is negative, the gap is positive in all other countries. Additionally, while the ruralurban gap is highest in Yemen Rep. (49.2%) and Cambodia (42.2%); the gap is generally high in Latin American and African countries— e.g., Argentina, Brazil, Cameroon, Cˆote D’Ivoire, Mozambique, Peru, Panama, Niger, Liberia, Guatemala, Zambia, and Tunisia, where it is above 20 percent. (See, Table 3).<sup>15</sup> It is worth highlighting that while the rural-urban gap is small in countries such as Congo, Dem. Rep., Lesotho, and Kenya, these countries have low access to sanitation in both rural and urban areas. Hence, the low gap in access to sanitation is not indicative of a lack of sanitation problem in in these countries; it is in fact the result of a chronically low access to sanitation in both rural and urban areas. In contrast, countries like Malaysia, Jordan, Serbia, and Costa

> 15Romania has one of the highest rural-urban gap in access to sanitation outside Latin America and Africa

8