IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v10y2018i10p3526-d173083.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Multiple Goals Dilemma of Residential Water Pricing Policy Reform: Increasing Block Tariffs or a Uniform Tariff with Rebate?

Author

Listed:
  • Xunzhou Ma

    (Institute of Environment and Economy, College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
    College of Economics, Southwest Minzu University, Chengdu 610041, China)

  • Dan Wu

    (Institute of Environment and Economy, College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
    School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China)

  • Shiqiu Zhang

    (Institute of Environment and Economy, College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China)

Abstract

Water is a basic necessity and its allocation and utilization, especially pricing policies, impose various social, economic, and ecological impacts on social groups. Increasing block tariffs (IBTs) has gained popularity because it is expected to incentivize water conservation while protecting poor people benefiting from the redistribution effects because of its nonlinear tariff structure. However, it results in price distortion under certain circumstances. Researchers have also proposed an alternative practical price system and a uniform tariff with rebate (UTR), with the price level set equal to the marginal social cost and a fixed rebate allocated to the poor groups. This study proceeds with a simulation of the two pricing systems, UTR and IBTs, and empirically explores their fundamental merits and limitations. The results confirm the theoretical perspective that a water price system, compared with an optimal tariff system, simultaneously achieves multiple goals to the greatest possible extent.

Suggested Citation

  • Xunzhou Ma & Dan Wu & Shiqiu Zhang, 2018. "Multiple Goals Dilemma of Residential Water Pricing Policy Reform: Increasing Block Tariffs or a Uniform Tariff with Rebate?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-17, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:10:p:3526-:d:173083
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/10/3526/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/10/3526/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ziv Bar-Shira & Israel Finkelshtain & Avi Simhon, 2006. "Block-Rate versus Uniform Water Pricing in Agriculture: An Empirical Analysis," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 88(4), pages 986-999.
    2. de Bartolome, Charles A. M., 1995. "Which tax rate do people use: Average or marginal?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 79-96, January.
    3. Athanasios Kampas & Stelios Rozakis, 2017. "On the Scarcity Value of Irrigation Water: Juxtaposing Two Market Estimating Approaches," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 31(4), pages 1257-1269, March.
    4. Hajispyrou, Soteroula & Koundouri, Phoebe & Pashardes, Panos, 2002. "Household demand and welfare: implications of water pricing in Cyprus," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(4), pages 659-685, October.
    5. Ronald C. Griffin, 2006. "Water Resource Economics: The Analysis of Scarcity, Policies, and Projects," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026207267x, December.
    6. Xunzhou Ma & Shiqiu Zhang & Quan Mu, 2014. "How Do Residents Respond to Price under Increasing Block Tariffs? Evidence from Experiments in Urban Residential Water Demand in Beijing," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 28(14), pages 4895-4909, November.
    7. Julie A. Hewitt & W. Michael Hanemann, 1995. "A Discrete/Continuous Choice Approach to Residential Water Demand under Block Rate Pricing," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 71(2), pages 173-192.
    8. Shin, Jeong-Shik, 1985. "Perception of Price When Price Information Is Costly: Evidence from Residential Electricity Demand," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(4), pages 591-598, November.
    9. Henry S. Foster, Jr. & Bruce R. Beattie, 1981. "On the Specification of Price in Studies of Consumer Demand under Block Price Scheduling," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(4), pages 624-629.
    10. Hajispyrou, Soteroula & Koundouri, Phoebe & Pashardes, Panos, 2002. "Household demand and welfare: implications of water pricing in Cyprus," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(4), pages 659-685, October.
    11. Athanasios Kampas & Anna Vasilaki & Athanasios Petsakos & Angeliki Stefopoulou, 2013. "Irrigation Full Cost Assessment: The case of the Pinios Local Organization for Land Reclamation, Greece," Working Papers 2013-1, Agricultural University of Athens, Department Of Agricultural Economics.
    12. Michael L. Nieswiadomy & David J. Molina, 1989. "Comparing Residential Water Demand Estimates under Decreasing and Increasing Block Rates Using Household Data," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 65(3), pages 280-289.
    13. Piet Rietveld & Jan Rouwendal & Bert Zwart, 2000. "Block Rate Pricing of Water in Indonesia: An Analysis of Welfare Effects," Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(3), pages 73-92.
    14. James Banks & Richard Blundell & Arthur Lewbel, 1997. "Quadratic Engel Curves And Consumer Demand," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(4), pages 527-539, November.
    15. Whittington, Dale, 1992. "Possible Adverse Effects of Increasing Block Water Tariffs in Developing Countries," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(1), pages 75-87, October.
    16. David W. Carter & J. Walter Milon, 2005. "Price Knowledge in Household Demand for Utility Services," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 81(2).
    17. Donald E. Agthe & R. Bruce Billings, 1987. "Equity, Price Elasticity, and Household Income Under Increasing Block Rates for Water," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(3), pages 273-286, July.
    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. R. R. Weerasooriya & L. P. K. Liyanage & R. H. K. Rathnappriya & W. B. M. A. C. Bandara & T. A. N. T. Perera & M. H. J. P. Gunarathna & G. Y. Jayasinghe, 2021. "Industrial water conservation by water footprint and sustainable development goals: a review," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(9), pages 12661-12709, September.
    2. Ali Aljamal & Mark Speece & Mohsen Bagnied, 2020. "Sustainable Policy for Water Pricing in Kuwait," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-18, April.
    3. Yan Liu & Yan Wang & Han Zhao & Yibin Ao & Linchuan Yang, 2020. "Influences of Building Characteristics and Attitudes on Water Conservation Behavior of Rural Residents," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-21, September.

    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. Xunzhou Ma & Shiqiu Zhang & Quan Mu, 2014. "How Do Residents Respond to Price under Increasing Block Tariffs? Evidence from Experiments in Urban Residential Water Demand in Beijing," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 28(14), pages 4895-4909, November.
    2. Henrique Monteiro, 2010. "Residential Water Demand in Portugal: checking for efficiency-based justifications for increasing block tariffs," Working Papers Series 1 ercwp0110, ISCTE-IUL, Business Research Unit (BRU-IUL).
    3. 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.
    4. Arbues, Fernando & Garcia-Valinas, Maria Angeles & Martinez-Espineira, Roberto, 2003. "Estimation of residential water demand: a state-of-the-art review," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 81-102, March.
    5. Worthington, Andrew C., 2010. "Commercial and Industrial Water Demand Estimation: Theoretical and Methodological Guidelines for Applied Economics Research/Estimación de la demanda de agua comercial e industrial: pautas teóricas y m," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 28, pages 237-258, Agosto.
    6. Arjan Ruijs, 2007. "Welfare and Distribution Effects of Water Pricing Policies," Working Papers 2007.92, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    7. Ruijs, Arjan, 2007. "Welfare and Distribution Effects of Water Pricing Policies," Natural Resources Management Working Papers 7441, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    8. Barde, Julia Alexa & Lehmann, Paul, 2013. "Distributional effects of water tariff reforms: An empirical study for Lima, Peru," UFZ Discussion Papers 14/2013, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).
    9. Ruijs, A. & Zimmermann, A. & van den Berg, M., 2008. "Demand and distributional effects of water pricing policies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2-3), pages 506-516, June.
    10. Lehmann, Paul, 2011. "Making water affordable to all: A typology and evaluation of options for urban water pricing," UFZ Discussion Papers 10/2011, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).
    11. Ming-Feng Hung & Bin-Tzong Chie, 2013. "Residential Water Use: Efficiency, Affordability, and Price Elasticity," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 27(1), pages 275-291, January.
    12. Alberini, Anna & Bezhanishvili, Levan & Ščasný, Milan, 2022. "“Wild” tariff schemes: Evidence from the Republic of Georgia," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    13. René Cabral & Luciano Ayala & Victor Hugo Delgado, 2017. "Residential Water Demand and Price Perception under Increasing Block Rates," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(1), pages 508-519.
    14. Li, Yao & Fan, Jin & Zhao, Dingtao & Wu, Yanrui & Li, Jun, 2016. "Tiered gasoline pricing: A personal carbon trading perspective," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 194-201.
    15. Diakité, Daouda & Thomas, Alban, 2011. "La demande domestique d’eau potable : une étude sur un panel de communes ivoiriennes," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 87(3), pages 269-299, septembre.
    16. Christopher Boyer & Damian Adams & Tatiana Borisova & Christopher Clark, 2012. "Factors Driving Water Utility Rate Structure Choice: Evidence from Four Southern U.S. States," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(10), pages 2747-2760, August.
    17. Wichman, Casey J., 2014. "Perceived price in residential water demand: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PA), pages 308-323.
    18. Arjan Ruijs, 2009. "Welfare and Distribution Effects of Water Pricing Policies," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 43(2), pages 161-182, June.
    19. Dinusha Dharmaratna & Edwyna Harris, 2010. "Estimating Residential Water Demand using the Stone-Geary Functional Form: the Case of Sri Lanka," Monash Economics Working Papers 46-10, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    20. Tamkinat Rauf & M. Wasif Siddiqi, 2008. "Price-setting for Residential Water: Estimation of Water Demand in Lahore," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 47(4), pages 893-906.

    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:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:10:p:3526-:d:173083. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.