A Spatial Analysis of The Relationship Between Sewage Coverage and Education in Brazilian Municipalities

Abstract

This paper uses 2017 data from INEP, SNIS, PNSB,  iBGE and RAIS to investigate the association between municipal sewage coverage and educational indicators in the Brazilian context – the age-grade distortion and the standardized SAEB score – from a Spatial perspective. The exploratory spatial data analysis identified positive spatial dependence for the variables of interest in this paper and for the residuals of the OLS models. The information criterion and likelihood ratio pointed the selection of the Spatial Durbin Error Model (SDEM) for both regressions. In the SAEB model, no significance was found for the local or lagged coverage rate, although the presence of sewage infrastructure (either high or low) is associated with an increase in the SAEB’s score. In cities where the infrastructure exists, the expansion of sewage coverage relates to a reduction of 0.017% of age-grade distortion. This decrease reaches 0.043%
when the sewage coverage of neighboring cities is expanded.