Water Policy 4 (2002) 531–556 Household demand for improved piped water services: evidence from Kathmandu, Nepal $ Dale Whittington a, *, Subhrendu K. Pattanayak b , Jui-Chen Yang b , K.C. Bal Kumar c a Departments of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, City & Regional Planning, and Public Policy, Rosenau Hall CB# 7431, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA b Center for Regulatory Economics and Policy Research, Research Triangle Institute, 3040 Cornwallis Road, RTP, NC 27709-2194, USA c Central department of Population Studies, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal Received 24 February 2002; received in revised form 26 August 2002; accepted 20 September 2002 Abstract We examine households’ demand for improved water services in Kathmandu, Nepal, where the governmentisconsideringthepossibilityofinvolvingtheprivatesectorintheoperationofmunicipalwater supplyservices.Wesurveyedarandomlyselectedsampleof1500householdsintheKathmanduValleyand askedrespondentsquestionsinin-personinterviewsabouthowtheywouldvoteifgiventhechoicebetween their existing water supply situation and an improved water service provided by a private operator. The results provide the first evidence from South Asia that households’ willingness to pay for improved water services is much higher than their current water bills. We find substantial public support among both poor and nonpoor households for a privatization plan that would improve water supply and require all participants to pay regular and higher monthly bills. r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In this paper we examine households’ demand for the improved water services to be provided by a private operator before a privatization deal is concluded Pattanayak et al. (2001). The GovernmentofNepalisconsideringthepossibilityofinvolvingtheprivatesectorintheoperation of municipal water supply services in the Kathmandu Valley. In March and April, 2001, we $ Detailed discussions of the materials presented in this paper are reported in Pattanayak et al. (2001). *Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-919-966-7645; fax: +1-919-966-0631. E-mail addresses: dale whittington@unc.edu (D. Whittington), subhrendu@rti.org (S.K. Pattanayak). 1366-7017/02/$-see front matter r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII:S1366-7017(02)00040-5