IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/uwauwp/264780.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Equitable and Efficient systems of water utility charges in the face of a changing water supply mix

Author

Listed:
  • Fogarty, James
  • Polyakov, Maksym
  • Iftekhar, MD Sayed

Abstract

In this research we argue that for jurisdictions where desalinated water has been introduced as a major supply source such that long run marginal cost is rising, marginal cost pricing is: (i) efficient; (ii) delivers revenue sufficiency; and (iii) is more equitable than traditional pricing approaches. To illustrate our result we compare outcomes under different pricing structures in Western Australia, a jurisdiction where desalinated water is responsible for almost half total potable water supply. We also show that a pure volumetric charge for wastewater services is more equitable than property value based charges or a uniform tariff. The results are based on analysis of water charges for over 700,000 individual households.

Suggested Citation

  • Fogarty, James & Polyakov, Maksym & Iftekhar, MD Sayed, 2017. "Equitable and Efficient systems of water utility charges in the face of a changing water supply mix," Working Papers 264780, University of Western Australia, School of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:uwauwp:264780
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.264780
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/264780/files/WP1706R.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/264780/files/WP1706R.pdf?subformat=pdfa
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.264780?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hugh Sibly, 2006. "Urban Water Pricing," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 13(1), pages 17-30.
    2. Pierre Badiuzzaman & Eoin McLaughlin & Darren McCauley, 2017. "Substituting Freshwater: Can Ocean Desalination and Water Recycling Capacities Substitute for Groundwater Depletion in California?," Discussion Papers in Environment and Development Economics 2017-09, University of St. Andrews, School of Geography and Sustainable Development.
    3. Hugh Sibly & Richard Tooth, 2014. "The consequences of using increasing block tariffs to price urban water," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 58(2), pages 223-243, April.
    4. repec:bla:ausecr:v:39:y:2006:i:2:p:227-237 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Yew‐Kwang Ng, 1987. "Equity, Efficiency and Financial Viability: Public‐Utility Pricing with Special Reference to Water Supply," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 20(3), pages 21-35, September.
    6. Ronald H. Coase, 1970. "The Theory of Public Utility Pricing and Its Application," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 1(1), pages 113-128, Spring.
    7. Mark Hoffmann & Andrew Worthington & Helen Higgs, 2006. "Urban water demand with fixed volumetric charging in a large municipality: the case of Brisbane, Australia ," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 50(3), pages 347-359, September.
    8. Renzetti, Steven & Dupont, Diane P. & Chitsinde, Tina, 2015. "An empirical examination of the distributional impacts of water pricing reforms," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 63-69.
    9. Liangyue Cao & Amanda Hosking & Michael Kouparitsas & Damian Mullaly & Xavier Rimmer & Qun Shi & Wallace Stark & Sebastian Wende, 2015. "Understanding the economy-wide efficiency and incidence of major Australian taxes," Treasury Working Papers 2015-01, The Treasury, Australian Government, revised Apr 2015.
    10. Ng, Yew-Kwang, 1984. "Quasi-Pareto Social Improvements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(5), pages 1033-1050, December.
    11. Robert McMaster & Daniel F. Mackay, 1998. "Distribution, Equity and Domestic Water Charging Regimes: The Case of Scotland," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(1), pages 85-105, March.
    12. John Freebairn, 2008. "Some Emerging Issues In Urban Water Supply And Pricing," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 27(2), pages 184-193, June.
    13. Andrew C. Worthington & Mark Hoffman, 2008. "An Empirical Survey Of Residential Water Demand Modelling," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(5), pages 842-871, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Productivity Commission, 2008. "Towards Urban Water Reform: A Discussion Paper," Research Papers 0801, Productivity Commission, Government of Australia.
    2. Aina, Ifedotun Victor & Thiam, Djiby Racine & Dinar, Ariel, 2023. "Substitution of piped water and self-supplied groundwater: The case of residential water in South Africa," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    3. repec:bla:ausecr:v:41:y:2008:i:4:p:401-412 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Barker, Andrew & Murray, Tim & Salerian, John, 2010. "Developing a Partial Equilibrium Model of an Urban Water System," Staff Working Papers 102, Productivity Commission, Government of Australia.
    5. Edwards, Geoff W., 2012. "The Desalination Plant, The North-South Pipeline And The Welfare Of Melburnians," 2012 Conference (56th), February 7-10, 2012, Fremantle, Australia 124292, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    6. Maria Carmela Aprile & Damiano Fiorillo, 2016. "Water Conservation Behavior and Environmental Concerns," Discussion Papers 6_2016, CRISEI, University of Naples "Parthenope", Italy.
    7. Malcolm Abbott & My Tran, 2020. "The Price Elasticity of Demand of Australian Urban Residential Consumers and Water Restrictions," International Business Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 13(3), pages 153-153, March.
    8. Maria A. García‐Valiñas & Roberto Martínez‐Espiñeira & Francisco González‐Gómez, 2010. "Economics of Water Reform in the Murray-Darling Basin," Centre for Water Economics, Environment and Policy Papers 1005, Centre for Water Economics, Environment and Policy, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    9. Alemken Jegnie & James Fogarty & Sayed Iftekhar, 2023. "Urban Residential Water Demand and Household Size: A Robust Meta‐Regression Analysis," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 99(326), pages 436-453, September.
    10. Teresa Torregrosa & Martín Sevilla & Borja Montaño & Victoria López-Vico, 2010. "The Integrated Management of Water Resources in Marina Baja (Alicante, Spain). A Simultaneous Equation Model," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 24(14), pages 3799-3815, November.
    11. María Ángeles García-Valiñas & Sara Suárez-Fernández, 2022. "Are Economic Tools Useful to Manage Residential Water Demand? A Review of Old Issues and Emerging Topics," Post-Print hal-04067487, HAL.
    12. Renzetti, Steven & Dupont, Diane P. & Chitsinde, Tina, 2015. "An empirical examination of the distributional impacts of water pricing reforms," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 63-69.
    13. Richard G. Lipsey, 2012. "A critique of Ng's third-best theory," Discussion Papers dp12-02, Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University.
    14. Hughes, Neal & Hafi, Ahmed & Goesch, Tim & Brownlowe, Nathan, 2008. "Urban water management: optimal price and investment policy under uncertainty," 2008 Conference (52nd), February 5-8, 2008, Canberra, Australia 6005, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    15. Saeed Ghavidelfar & Asaad Y. Shamseldin & Bruce W. Melville, 2017. "A Multi-Scale Analysis of Single-Unit Housing Water Demand Through Integration of Water Consumption, Land Use and Demographic Data," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 31(7), pages 2173-2186, May.
    16. María Angeles García Valiñas, 2004. "Eficiencia y equidad en el diseño de precios óptimos para bienes y servicios públicos," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 168(1), pages 95-119, march.
    17. Maria A. García-Valiñas & Roberto Martínez-Francisco & González-Gómez, 2010. "Water affordability: alternativem measurement and explanatory Factors in Andalusia," Centre for Water Economics, Environment and Policy Papers 1014, Centre for Water Economics, Environment and Policy, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    18. Mónica Maldonado-Devis & Vicent Almenar-Llongo, 2021. "A Panel Data Estimation of Domestic Water Demand with IRT Tariff Structure: The Case of the City of Valencia (Spain)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-26, January.
    19. Fernando Arbués & Inmaculada Villanúa & Ramón Barberán, 2010. "Household size and residential water demand: an empirical approach ," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 54(1), pages 61-80, January.
    20. Tran, Chung & Wende, Sebastian, 2021. "On the marginal excess burden of taxation in an overlapping generations model," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    21. Jean-Daniel Rinaudo, 2015. "Long-Term Water Demand Forecasting," Post-Print hal-01183853, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public Economics;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:uwauwp:264780. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aruwaau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.