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Abstract
One of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development’s most popular programs is
the funding for public water and sewer infrastructure projects in rural communities. This
article reviews the water and sewer infrastructure projects funded in the state of Oklahoma
between 1990 and 2000 and evaluates their impact on different measures of economic growth
over both the short (one to 10 years) and long (10 to 20 years) term. Evaluation techniques
include multivariate regression and average treatment effects. Results suggest that although
most economic growth measures (population, income levels, and poverty levels) are not
impacted by the program, housing values do show a statistically significant increase in
communities receiving water or sewer infrastructure funding over the long term.