IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/uwp/landec/v81y2005i2p265-283.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Price Knowledge in Household Demand for Utility Services

Author

Listed:
  • David W. Carter
  • J. Walter Milon

Abstract

A household’s decision to acquire price knowledge is endogenous in the demand for utility services and may affect elasticities and consumption levels. A simultaneous equation model with endogenous switching is developed to evaluate the effects of price knowledge and other sources of heterogeneity. Results indicate informed households were more responsive to average and marginal price signals. Informed households also use less water, but this is due to heterogeneity rather than price knowledge. Controlling for heterogeneity, price knowledge actually increases monthly water usage. The implications of accounting for differences in price knowledge in utility demand modeling and demand management policy are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • David W. Carter & J. Walter Milon, 2005. "Price Knowledge in Household Demand for Utility Services," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 81(2).
    • Handle: RePEc:uwp:landec:v:81:y:2005:i:2:p265-283
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://le.uwpress.org/cgi/reprint/81/2/265
    Download Restriction: A subscripton is required to access pdf files. Pay per article is available.
    ---><---

    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. Herriges, Joseph A. & King, K.A., 1994. "Residential Demand for Electricity Under Block Rate Structures: Evidence from a Controlled Experiment," Staff General Research Papers Archive 1498, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    2. Céline Nauges & Alban Thomas, 2000. "Privately Operated Water Utilities, Municipal Price Negotiation, and Estimation of Residential Water Demand: The Case of France," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 76(1), pages 68-85.
    3. 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.
    4. John Conlisk, 1996. "Why Bounded Rationality?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 669-700, June.
    5. 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.
    6. Espey, James A. & Espey, Molly, 2004. "Turning on the Lights: A Meta-Analysis of Residential Electricity Demand Elasticities," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(1), pages 65-81, April.
    7. Kujala, Jouni T. & Johnson, Michael D., 1993. "Price knowledge and search behavior for habitual, low involvement food purchases," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 249-265, June.
    8. R. Martinez-Espiñeira, 2002. "Residential Water Demand in the Northwest of Spain," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 21(2), pages 161-187, February.
    9. MaCurdy, Thomas, 1992. "Work Disincentive Effects of Taxes: A Reexamination of Some Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(2), pages 243-249, May.
    10. Heckman, James J, 1978. "Dummy Endogenous Variables in a Simultaneous Equation System," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(4), pages 931-959, July.
    11. Heim, Bradley T. & Meyer, Bruce D., 2004. "Work costs and nonconvex preferences in the estimation of labor supply models," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(11), pages 2323-2338, September.
    12. Herriges, Joseph A & King, Kathleen Kuester, 1994. "Residential Demand for Electricity under Inverted Block Rates: Evidence from a Controlled Experiment," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 12(4), pages 419-430, October.
    13. Burtless, Gary & Hausman, Jerry A, 1978. "The Effect of Taxation on Labor Supply: Evaluating the Gary Negative Income Tax Experiments," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(6), pages 1103-1130, December.
    14. Lee, Lung-fei & Maddala, G S & Trost, R P, 1980. "Asymptotic Covariance Matrices of Two-Stage Probit and Two-Stage Tobit Methods for Simultaneous Equations Models with Selectivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(2), pages 491-503, March.
    15. David L. Chicoine & Ganapathi Ramamurthy, 1986. "Evidence on the Specification of Price in the Study of Domestic Water Demand," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 62(1), pages 26-32.
    16. Flood, Lennart & MaCurdy, Thomas, 1992. "Work disincentive effects of taxes: An empirical analysis of Swedish men," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 239-277, December.
    17. Sendhil Mullainathan, 2002. "A Memory-Based Model of Bounded Rationality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 735-774.
    18. Lee, Lung-fei, 1995. "The Computation of Opportunity Costs in Polychotomous Choice Models with Selectivity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 77(3), pages 423-435, August.
    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. Cristina Lopez-Mayan, 2014. "Microeconometric Analysis of Residential Water Demand," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 59(1), pages 137-166, September.
    2. 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.
    3. E. Strazzera, 2006. "Application of the ML Hausman approach to the demand of water for residential use: heterogeneity vs two-error specification," Working Paper CRENoS 200604, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    4. Koji Miyawaki & Yasuhiro Omori & Akira Hibiki, 2018. "A discrete/continuous choice model on a nonconvex budget set," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 89-113, February.
    5. 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.
    6. Tchigriaeva, Elena & Lott, Corey & Kimberly, Rollins, 2014. "Modeling effects of multiple conservation policy instruments and exogenous factors on urban residential water demand through household heterogeneity," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 170605, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    7. Koji Miyawaki & Yasuhiro Omori & Akira Hibiki, 2006. "Bayesian Estimation of Demand Functions under Block Rate Pricing," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-424, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    8. Céline Nauges & Dale Whittington, 2010. "Estimation of Water Demand in Developing Countries: An Overview," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 25(2), pages 263-294, August.
    9. Dinusha Dharmaratna & Edwyna Harris, 2012. "Estimating Residential Water Demand Using the Stone-Geary Functional Form: The Case of Sri Lanka," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(8), pages 2283-2299, June.
    10. R. Martínez-Espiñeira, 2003. "Estimating Water Demand under Increasing-Block Tariffs Using Aggregate Data and Proportions of Users per Block," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 26(1), pages 5-23, September.
    11. Zhang, Zibin & Cai, Wenxin & Feng, Xiangzhao, 2017. "How do urban households in China respond to increasing block pricing in electricity? Evidence from a fuzzy regression discontinuity approach," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 161-172.
    12. Roberto Martínez-Espiñeira, 2007. "An Estimation of Residential Water Demand Using Co-Integration and Error Correction Techniques," Journal of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1), pages 161-184, May.
    13. Acuña, Guillermo, 2017. "Elasticidades de la demanda de agua en Chile [Elasticities of water demand in Chile]," MPRA Paper 82916, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Heim, Bradley T. & Meyer, Bruce D., 2004. "Work costs and nonconvex preferences in the estimation of labor supply models," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(11), pages 2323-2338, September.
    15. Fell, Harrison & Li, Shanjun & Paul, Anthony, 2014. "A new look at residential electricity demand using household expenditure data," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 37-47.
    16. Arjan Ruijs, 2007. "Welfare and Distribution Effects of Water Pricing Policies," Working Papers 2007.92, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    17. María Angeles García Valiñas, 2005. "Promotion and remuneration of university professors: from the LRU to the COU," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 172(1), pages 119-143, June.
    18. Kostas Bithas & Chrysostomos Stoforos, 2006. "Estimating Urban Residential Water Demand Determinants and Forecasting Water Demand for Athens Metropolitan Area, 2000-2010," South-Eastern Europe Journal of Economics, Association of Economic Universities of South and Eastern Europe and the Black Sea Region, vol. 4(1), pages 47-59.
    19. 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.
    20. Olivier Bargain & Andreas Peichl, 2016. "Own-wage labor supply elasticities: variation across time and estimation methods," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-31, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • Q21 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Demand and Supply; Prices
    • Q41 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Demand and Supply; Prices

    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:uwp:landec:v:81:y:2005:i:2:p265-283. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://le.uwpress.org/ .

    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.