IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wsi/wepxxx/v04y2018i04ns2382624x18500170.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Charges for Water and Access: What Explains the Differences Among West Virginian Municipalities?

Author

Listed:
  • Elham Erfanian

    (Resource Economics and Management, Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Design, West Virginia University, Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia USA)

  • Alan R. Collins

    (Resource Economics and Management, Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Design, West Virginia University, Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia USA)

Abstract

Examining both spatial and non-spatial econometric analyses with a dataset of 125 municipal water utilities, we investigate utility cost and community factors that explain variation in residential user charges and monthly access charges for water. The results of water charges model are consistent with the theory of water cost determination as water source, debt, and economies of size plus scale influence residential consumer charges for water. Both models (water charges and minimum monthly access) displayed positive spillover effects, although the only variable in either model with a significant indirect effect is water charges on minimum monthly access charges. Based upon model results, ground water use by utilities lowers water charges and is estimated to save residential customers in West Virginia over $3.6 million annually. West Virginia households typically pay far below the OECD standard of 3 to 5% of household income for municipal water, which may explain why socioeconomic factors do not influence minimum monthly charges for access.

Suggested Citation

  • Elham Erfanian & Alan R. Collins, 2018. "Charges for Water and Access: What Explains the Differences Among West Virginian Municipalities?," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(04), pages 1-27, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:wsi:wepxxx:v:04:y:2018:i:04:n:s2382624x18500170
    DOI: 10.1142/S2382624X18500170
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S2382624X18500170
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1142/S2382624X18500170?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. Katrin Millock & Céline Nauges, 2010. "Household Adoption of Water-Efficient Equipment: The Role of Socio-Economic Factors, Environmental Attitudes and Policy," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 46(4), pages 539-565, August.
    2. Carvalho, Pedro & Marques, Rui Cunha & Berg, Sanford, 2012. "A meta-regression analysis of benchmarking studies on water utilities market structure," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 40-49.
    3. Robin Boadway, 1976. "Integrating Equity and Efficiency in Applied Welfare Economics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 90(4), pages 541-556.
    4. Christopher Müller, 2015. "Welfare Effects of Water Pricing in Germany," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 1(04), pages 1-25, December.
    5. repec:rre:publsh:v:37:y:2007:i:2:p:207-50 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Charlene M. Kalenkoski & Donald J. Lacombe, 2013. "Minimum wages and teen employment: A spatial panel approach," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 92(2), pages 407-417, June.
    7. Fumitoshi Mizutani & Takuya Urakami, 2001. "articles: Identifying network density and scale economies for Japanese water supply organizations," Papers in Regional Science, Springer;Regional Science Association International, vol. 80(2), pages 211-230.
    8. Simon Porcher, 2014. "Efficiency and equity in two-part tariffs: the case of residential water rates," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(5), pages 539-555, February.
    9. Baerenklau, Kenneth A. & Schwabe, Kurt & Dinar, Ariel, 2014. "Do Increasing Block Rate Water Budgets Reduce Residential Water Demand? A Case Study in Southern California," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 170019, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    10. Luc Anselin & Julie Le Gallo, 2006. "Interpolation of air quality measures in hedonic house price models : spatial aspects," Post-Print hal-00485017, HAL.
    11. Antonioli, B. & Filippini, M., 2001. "The use of a variable cost function in the regulation of the Italian water industry," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 10(3-4), pages 181-187.
    12. Elizabeth A Mack & Sarah Wrase, 2017. "A Burgeoning Crisis? A Nationwide Assessment of the Geography of Water Affordability in the United States," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(1), pages 1-19, January.
    13. Teresa Sanchez-Martinez & Noelina Rodriguez-Ferrero, 2017. "Ramsey Pricing for Cost Recovery Applied to Reservoir Infrastructure in Andalucía (Spain)," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 3(04), pages 1-20, October.
    14. Alexandros Polycarpou & Theodoros Zachariadis, 2013. "An Econometric Analysis of Residential Water Demand in Cyprus," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 27(1), pages 309-317, January.
    15. Bel Germà & Fageda Xavier & E. Mildred, 2014. "Is private production of public services cheaper than public production? A meta-regression analysis of solid waste and water services," Public administration issues, Higher School of Economics, issue 3, pages 103-140.
    16. Severin Borenstein & Lucas W. Davis, 2012. "The Equity and Efficiency of Two-Part Tariffs in U.S. Natural Gas Markets," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(1), pages 75-128.
    17. Marta Suárez-Varela & María los Ángeles García-Valiñas & Francisco González-Gómez & Andrés J Picazo-Tadeo, 2017. "Ownership and Performance in Water Services Revisited: Does Private Management Really Outperform Public?," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 31(8), pages 2355-2373, June.
    18. Ansink, Erik & Houba, Harold, 2012. "Market power in water markets," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 237-252.
    19. Tracy A. Boyer & Patrick Kanza & Monika Ghimire & Justin Q. Moss, 2015. "Household Adoption of Water Conservation and Resilience Under Drought: The Case of Oklahoma City," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 1(02), pages 1-21.
    20. Mary E. Renwick & Sandra O. Archibald, 1998. "Demand Side Management Policies for Residential Water Use: Who Bears the Conservation Burden?," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 74(3), pages 343-359.
    21. Youn Kim, H. & Clark, Robert M., 1988. "Economies of scale and scope in water supply," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 479-502, November.
    22. Teeples, Ronald K & Glyer, David, 1987. "Cost of Water Delivery Systems: Specification and Ownership Effects," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(3), pages 399-408, August.
    23. Kenneth A. Baerenklau & Kurt A. Schwabe & Ariel Dinar, 2014. "The Residential Water Demand Effect of Increasing Block Rate Water Budgets," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 90(4), pages 683-699.
    24. Getis, Arthur, 2007. "Reflections on spatial autocorrelation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 491-496, July.
    25. James P. Lesage, 2008. "An Introduction to Spatial Econometrics," Revue d'économie industrielle, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(3), pages 19-44.
    26. Kritikos, Alexander & Bolle, Friedel, 2001. "Distributional concerns: equity- or efficiency-oriented?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 73(3), pages 333-338, December.
    27. Klein, Michael, 1996. "Economic regulation of water companies," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1649, The World Bank.
    28. Stephen Holland, 2006. "Privatization of Water-Resource Development," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 34(2), pages 291-315, June.
    29. Rijsberman, Frank R., 2006. "Water scarcity: Fact or fiction?," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 80(1-3), pages 5-22, February.
    30. Feigenbaum, Susan & Teeples, Ronald, 1983. "Public versus Private Water Delivery: A Hedonic Cost Approach," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(4), pages 672-678, November.
    31. Bithas, Kostas, 2008. "The sustainable residential water use: Sustainability, efficiency and social equity. The European experience," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1-2), pages 221-229, December.
    32. Steven Renzetti, 1999. "Municipal Water Supply and Sewage Treatment: Costs, Prices and Distortions," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 32(3), pages 688-704, May.
    33. Harry Kelejian & George Tavlas & George Hondroyiannis, 2006. "A Spatial Modelling Approach to Contagion Among Emerging Economies," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 423-441, December.
    34. A. Reznik & E. Feinerman & I. Finkelshtain & I. Kan & F. Fisher & A. Huber-Lee & B. Joyce, 2016. "The Cost of Covering Costs: A Nationwide Model for Water Pricing," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 2(04), pages 1-39, December.
    35. Won Kim, Chong & Phipps, Tim T. & Anselin, Luc, 2003. "Measuring the benefits of air quality improvement: a spatial hedonic approach," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 24-39, January.
    36. Guyomard, Herve & Vermersch, Dominique, 1989. "Derivation of long-run factor demands from short-run responses," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 3(3), pages 213-230, October.
    37. Eduardo Araral & Alberto Asquer & Yahua Wang, 2017. "Regulatory Constructivism: Application of Q Methodology in Italy and China," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 31(8), pages 2497-2521, June.
    38. Hervé Guyomard & Dominique Vermersch, 1989. "Derivation of long-run factor demands from short-run responses," Post-Print hal-01593967, HAL.
    39. Kim, H Youn, 1987. "Economies of Scale in Multi-product Firms: An Empirical Analysis," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 54(214), pages 185-206, May.
    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. Elham Erfanian & Alan R. Collins, 2017. "Charges for Water and Access: What Explains the Differences in West Virginia Municipalities?," Working Papers Working Paper 2017-02, Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University.
    2. Abbott, Malcolm & Cohen, Bruce, 2009. "Productivity and efficiency in the water industry," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(3-4), pages 233-244, September.
    3. Malcolm Abbott & Bruce Cohen, 2010. "Industry Structure Issues in the Water and Wastewater Sectors in Australia," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 29(1), pages 48-63, March.
    4. Carvalho, Pedro & Marques, Rui Cunha & Berg, Sanford, 2012. "A meta-regression analysis of benchmarking studies on water utilities market structure," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 40-49.
    5. Andrea Guerrini & Giulia Romano & Bettina Campedelli, 2013. "Economies of Scale, Scope, and Density in the Italian Water Sector: A Two-Stage Data Envelopment Analysis Approach," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 27(13), pages 4559-4578, October.
    6. Saal David S. & Arocena Pablo & Maziotis Alexandros & Triebs Thomas, 2013. "Scale and Scope Economies and the Efficient Vertical and Horizontal Configuration of the Water Industry: A Survey of the Literature," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 93-129, March.
    7. Klien, Michael & Michaud, David, 2019. "Water utility consolidation: Are economies of scale realized?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    8. Reto Foellmi & Urs Meister, 2012. "Enhancing the Efficiency of Water Supply—Product Market Competition Versus Trade," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 299-324, September.
    9. 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.
    10. Miguel A. García-Rubio & Francisco González-Gómez & Jorge Guardiola, 2009. "Performance and ownership in the governance of urban water," FEG Working Paper Series 09/03, Faculty of Economics and Business (University of Granada).
    11. Liu, Junqing & Fukushige, Mototsugu, 2020. "Efficiency and pricing of water supply and sewerage services in Japan," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    12. Francisco González-Gómez & Miguel García‐Rubio & Francisco Alcalá-Olid & M. Ortega-Díaz, 2013. "Outsourcing and Efficiency in the Management of Rural Water Services," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 27(3), pages 731-747, February.
    13. Wang, Jingjing & Chermak, Janie M., 2021. "Is less always more? Conservation, efficiency and water education programs," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    14. Torres, Marcelo & Morrison Paul, Catherine J., 2006. "Driving forces for consolidation or fragmentation of the US water utility industry: A cost function approach with endogenous output," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 104-120, January.
    15. François Destandau & Serge Garcia, 2014. "Service quality, scale economies and ownership: an econometric analysis of water supply costs," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 152-182, October.
    16. Ferro, Gustavo & Lentini, Emilio & Mercadier, Augusto & Romero, Carlos A., 2010. "Retornos a escala en agua y saneamiento: estimaciones para América Latina [Returns to scale in water and sanitation: estimates for Latin Amercia]," MPRA Paper 20324, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jan 2010.
    17. Massimo Filippini & Nevenka Hrovatin & Jelena Zorić, 2008. "Cost efficiency of Slovenian water distribution utilities: an application of stochastic frontier methods," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 169-182, April.
    18. Augusto Mercadier & Walter Cont & Gustavo Ferro, 2016. "Economies of scale in Peru’s water and sanitation sector," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 215-228, April.
    19. Antonioli, B. & Filippini, M., 2001. "The use of a variable cost function in the regulation of the Italian water industry," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 10(3-4), pages 181-187.
    20. 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.

    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:wsi:wepxxx:v:04:y:2018:i:04:n:s2382624x18500170. 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: Tai Tone Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.worldscinet.com/wep/wep.shtml .

    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.