IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jaerec/doi10.1086-715472.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Automated Enforcement of Irrigation Regulations and Social Pressure for Water Conservation

Author

Listed:
  • Jeremy West
  • Robert W. Fairlie
  • Bryan Pratt
  • Liam Rose

Abstract

This study evaluates two interventions for residential water conservation. Comparing households across an enforcement algorithm’s cutoff using a regression discontinuity design, we find that automated irrigation violation warnings cause substantial water conservation but also shift some consumption from regulated to unregulated hours within the week. In contrast, we show using data from a randomized experiment with the same customers that normative home water reports reduce water use by a much smaller amount, but that this social pressure is effective during all hours both before and after automating irrigation policy enforcement. Our findings highlight the merits of implementing multidimensional conservation programs.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeremy West & Robert W. Fairlie & Bryan Pratt & Liam Rose, 2021. "Automated Enforcement of Irrigation Regulations and Social Pressure for Water Conservation," Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(6), pages 1179-1207.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jaerec:doi:10.1086/715472
    DOI: 10.1086/715472
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/715472
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/715472
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/715472?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 look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Browne, Oliver R. & Gazze, Ludovica & Greenstone, Michael & Rostapshova, Olga, 2022. "Man vs. Machine : Technological Promise and Political Limits of Automated Regulation Enforcement," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 646, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    2. Wietelman, Derek & Wichman, Casey & Brent, Daniel A., 2025. "Conservation and Distributional Consequences of Pricing Scarce Water During Droughts," RFF Working Paper Series 25-07, Resources for the Future.
    3. Erik Ansink & Carmine Ornaghi & Mirco Tonin, 2021. "Technology vs information to promote conservation: Evidence from water audits," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 21-014/VIII, Tinbergen Institute.
    4. Jesper Akesson & Robert Hahn & Rajat Kochhar & Robert Metcalfe, 2025. "Do Water Audits Work?," Natural Field Experiments 00820, The Field Experiments Website.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D04 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Policy: Formulation; Implementation; Evaluation
    • L98 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Government Policy
    • Q25 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Water
    • R22 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Other Demand

    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:ucp:jaerec:doi:10.1086/715472. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JAERE .

    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.