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Urban Water Restrictions: Attitudes and Avoidance

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  • Cooper, Bethany
  • Crase, Lin
  • Burton, Michael P.

Abstract

In most urban cities across Australia, water restrictions remain the dominant policy mechanism to restrict urban water consumption. The extensive adoption of water restrictions over several years means that Australian urban water prices have consistently not reflected the opportunity cost of water (Edwards 2008). Given the generally strong political support for water restrictions and the likelihood that they will persist for some time, there is value in understanding householders’ attitudes in this context. More specifically, identifying the welfare gains associated with avoiding urban water restrictions entirely would be a non-trivial contribution to our knowledge. This paper is used to describe the results from a contingent valuation study that investigates consumers’ willingness to pay to avoid urban water restrictions. Importantly, the research also investigates the influence of cognitive and exogenous dimensions on the utility gain associated with avoiding water restrictions. The results provides some salutary insights into the impact of this policy mechanism on economic welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Cooper, Bethany & Crase, Lin & Burton, Michael P., 2010. "Urban Water Restrictions: Attitudes and Avoidance," 2010 Conference (54th), February 10-12, 2010, Adelaide, Australia 58892, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aare10:58892
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.58892
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    Cited by:

    1. Zhang, Fan & Fogarty, James, 2015. "Nonmarket Valuation of Water Sensitive Cities: Current Knowledge and Issues," Working Papers 207694, University of Western Australia, School of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    2. Cooper, Bethany & Rose, John & Crase, Lin, 2012. "Does anybody like water restrictions? Some observation in Australian urban communities," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 56(1), pages 1-21, March.
    3. Daniel A. Brent & Lata Gangadharan & Allison Lassiter & Anke Leroux & Paul A. Raschky, 2016. "Valuing Environmental Services Provided by LocalStormwater Management," Monash Economics Working Papers 35-16, Monash University, Department of Economics.

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