Meant to Keep Mosquitos Out, Nets Are Used to Haul Fish In

I'm interested to know what language this label was written in. Bemba? Nyanja? Moreover, where did the manufacturers intend for Zambians to wash the nets?

"It is often argued that cost-sharing—charging a subsidized, positive price—for a health product is necessary to avoid wasting resources on those who will not use or do not need the product. We explore this argument through a field experiment in Kenya, in which we randomized the price at which prenatal clinics could sell long-lasting antimalarial insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) to pregnant women. We find no evidence that cost-sharing reduces wastage on those who will not use the product: women who received free ITNs are not less likely to use them than those who paid subsidized positive prices. We also find no evidence that costsharing induces selection of women who need the net more: those who pay higher prices appear no sicker than the average prenatal client in the area in terms of measured anemia (an important indicator of malaria). Cost-sharing does, however, considerably dampen demand. We find that uptake drops by sixty percentage points when the price of ITNs increases from zero to $0.60 (i.e., from 100% to 90% subsidy), a price still $0.15 below the price at which ITNs are currently sold to pregnant women in Kenya. We combine our estimates in a cost-effectiveness analysis of the impact of ITN prices on child mortality that incorporates both private and social returns to ITN usage. Overall, our results suggest that free distribution of ITNs could save many more lives than cost-sharing programs have achieved so far, and, given the large positive externality associated with widespread usage of ITNs, would likely do so at a lesser cost per life saved."

Jessica Cohen & Pascaline Dupas, "Free Distribution or Cost-Sharing? Evidence from a Randomized Malaria Prevention Experiment", 2010 http://www.stanford.edu/~pdupas/CohenDupas.pdf

"The third finding from recent pricing studies is that people need not have paid for something to value it. Households are as likely to use their bednet when they get it for free as when they have to pay for it (4, 7–9). People are as likely to use their water filter if they paid a lower price for it (2). This is surprising for two reasons. First, standard economic theory suggests that charging nontrivial user fees should help target products to those who need them the most—and thus those most likely to put them to appropriate use. But this reasoning breaks down when people face credit constraints and their ability to pay is lower than their willingness to pay. When those who could use a product the most are too poor to pay cash for it, higher prices screen out the poor, not just those with lower health returns from using the product (9). Second, it is often thought that the act of paying itself makes people value a product or service more; the feeling of “guilt” from having spent money on something that is left unused would make people more diligent users. However, experimental studies designed to test the importance of this psychological phenomenon suggest that this consideration is not important when it comes to essential health (2, 7, 10). The cost of poor health seems a good enough incentive to put products to good use."

Pascaline Dupas, "Getting essential health products to their end users: Subsidize, but how much?" Science 345:1279-1281, 2014. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6202/1279.full.pdf?key...