IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/juipol/v24y2013icp32-47.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Structure, regulation, and pricing of water in the United States: A study of the Great Lakes region

Author

Listed:
  • Beecher, Janice A.
  • Kalmbach, Jason A.

Abstract

The structure and regulation of the U.S. water industry is more complex than is often apparent and pricing practices vary substantially. While not representative of the region or nation, a survey of the largest water systems in the wider Great Lakes region is illustrative as well as revealing of salient considerations within the sector. Data from Wisconsin provide additional perspective with regard to trends in costs and prices for water. The context of rising costs and prices, and growing concerns about accountability and sustainability, suggests consideration of pricing practices as well as the role of economic regulation in the water sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Beecher, Janice A. & Kalmbach, Jason A., 2013. "Structure, regulation, and pricing of water in the United States: A study of the Great Lakes region," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 32-47.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:juipol:v:24:y:2013:i:c:p:32-47
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jup.2012.08.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957178712000501
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jup.2012.08.002?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jasper M. Dalhuisen & Raymond J. G. M. Florax & JHenri L. F. de Groot & Peter Nijkamp, 2003. "Price and Income Elasticities of Residential Water Demand: A Meta-Analysis," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 79(2), pages 292-308.
    2. Werner Troesken, 2003. "Municipalizing American Waterworks, 1897--1915," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(2), pages 373-400, October.
    3. John Kwoka, 2005. "Electric power distribution: economies of scale, mergers, and restructuring," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(20), pages 2373-2386.
    4. Abbott, Malcolm & Cohen, Bruce, 2009. "Productivity and efficiency in the water industry," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(3-4), pages 233-244, September.
    5. Scott E. Masten, 2011. "Public Utility Ownership in 19th-Century America: The "Aberrant" Case of Water," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 27(3), pages 604-654.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lee, Changyen & Cheng, Chun-Fa & Chuang, Min-Ta & Hsu, Wei-Chieh & Chen, Yen-Hung & Cheng, Kuo-Tai, 2018. "How transparency and accountability matter in regulating the Taiwan Water Supply Corporation," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 50-58.
    2. Onda, Kyle S. & Tewari, Meenu, 2021. "Water systems in California: Ownership, geography, and affordability," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    3. Massarutto, Antonio, 2020. "Servant of too many masters: Residential water pricing and the challenge of sustainability," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    4. Homsy, George C. & Warner, Mildred E., 2020. "Does public ownership of utilities matter for local government water policies?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    5. Marques, Rui Cunha, 2017. "Why not regulate PPPs?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 141-146.
    6. Pinto, Francisco Silva & Marques, Rui Cuhna, 2015. "Tariff recommendations: A Panacea for the Portuguese water sector?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 36-44.
    7. Enrique Cabrera Jr. & Elvira Estruch-Juan & Elena Gómez & Roberto Teso, 2022. "Comprehensive Regulation of Water Services. Why Quality of Service and Economic Costs Cannot be Considered Separately," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 36(9), pages 3247-3264, July.
    8. Zhang, Xue & Rivas, Marcela Gonzalez & Grant, Mary & Warner, Mildred E., 2021. "Water Pricing and Affordability in the US: Public vs Private Ownership," SocArXiv 7mc4r, Center for Open Science.
    9. Singh, Kewal & Singh, Anoop & Prakash, Puneet, 2022. "Estimating the cost of equity for the regulated energy and infrastructure sectors in India," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    10. Molinos-Senante, María & Donoso, Guillermo, 2016. "Water scarcity and affordability in urban water pricing: A case study of Chile," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(PA), pages 107-116.

    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. Spiller, Pablo T., 2013. "Transaction cost regulation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 232-242.
    2. Klien, Michael & Michaud, David, 2019. "Water utility consolidation: Are economies of scale realized?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    3. Alberto Cavaliere & Mario Maggi & Francesca Stroffolini, 2015. "Investments in Water Networks: A Normative Analysis of Local Public Utilities," DEM Working Papers Series 098, University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management.
    4. Alberto Cavaliere & Mario Maggi & Francesca Stroffolini, 2015. "A Normative Analysis of Local Public Utilities: Investments in Water Networks," IEFE Working Papers 80, IEFE, Center for Research on Energy and Environmental Economics and Policy, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    5. Felix Höffler & Achim Wambach, 2013. "Investment coordination in network industries: the case of electricity grid and electricity generation," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 287-307, December.
    6. Steven Andrew Fenrick & Lullit Getachew, 2012. "Estimation of the effects of price and billing frequency on household water demand using a panel of Wisconsin municipalities," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(14), pages 1373-1380, September.
    7. Olmstead, Sheila M. & Michael Hanemann, W. & Stavins, Robert N., 2007. "Water demand under alternative price structures," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 181-198, September.
    8. Kitchens, Carl T. & Jaworski, Taylor, 2017. "Ownership and the price of residential electricity: Evidence from the United States, 1935–1940," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 53-61.
    9. Jamasb, T. & Söderberg, M., 2009. "Yardstick and Ex-post Regulation by Norm Model: Empirical Equivalence, Pricing Effect, and Performance in Sweeden," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0908, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    10. B. James Deaton & Bethany Lipka, 2023. "Cooperation between First Nations and Municipalities: Do Water-Sharing Arrangements Improve Drinking Water Quality?," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 99(3), pages 433-457.
    11. Liang Lu & David Deller & Morten Hviid, 2019. "Price and Behavioural Signals to Encourage Household Water Conservation: Implications for the UK," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 33(2), pages 475-491, January.
    12. Mountain, Bruce R., 2019. "Ownership, regulation, and financial disparity: The case of electricity distribution in Australia," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 1-1.
    13. Stanley, T.D. & Doucouliagos, Chris & Jarrell, Stephen B., 2008. "Meta-regression analysis as the socio-economics of economics research," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 276-292, February.
    14. Nataraj, Shanthi & Hanemann, W. Michael, 2011. "Does marginal price matter? A regression discontinuity approach to estimating water demand," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 198-212, March.
    15. FuloP ARPAD ZOLTAN & BAKO KINGA ERZSEBET, 2017. "The Analysis Structures Of The Costs And Of The Relationship Between Costs And Revenues In The Sector Of Sewerage And Wastewater Treatment In Romania," Annals - Economy Series, Constantin Brancusi University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 2, pages 188-196, December.
    16. Shivendra Kumar & Andrew Groth & Ljubo Vlacic, 2015. "Cost Evaluation of Water and Wastewater Treatment Plants Using Water Price Index," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 29(9), pages 3343-3356, July.
    17. Marie-Estelle Binet & Fabrizio Carlevaro & Michel Paul, 2014. "Estimation of Residential Water Demand with Imperfect Price Perception," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 59(4), pages 561-581, December.
    18. Cheng, Xiaomei & Bjørndal, Endre & Bjørndal, Mette, 2015. "Optimal Scale in Different Environments – The Case of Norwegian Electricity Distribution Companies," Discussion Papers 2015/22, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    19. Capece, Guendalina & Cricelli, Livio & Di Pillo, Francesca & Levialdi, Nathan, 2012. "New regulatory policies in Italy: Impact on financial results, on liquidity and profitability of natural gas retail companies," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 90-98.
    20. Michael O'Donnell & Robert P. Berrens, 2018. "Understanding Falling Municipal Water Demand in a Small City Dependent on the Declining Ogallala Aquifer: Case Study of Clovis, New Mexico," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(04), pages 1-40, October.

    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:eee:juipol:v:24:y:2013:i:c:p:32-47. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/utilities-policy .

    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.