Current Issues in the Economics of Water Resource Management

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

   PDF

2. Introduction

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. Current Issues in the Economics of Water Resource Management: Introduction

      • Panos Pashardes, Timothy Swanson, Anastasios Xepapadeas

      Pages 3-21

3. Demand for Water

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 23-23

      PDF

   2. Residential Demand for Water

      1. Estimating Water Demand under Increasing-Block Tariffs Using Aggregate Data and Proportions of Users per Block

         • R. Martínez-Espiñeira

         Pages 27-46

      2. Long-Run Study of Residential Water Consumption

         • Céline Nauges, Alban Thomas

         Pages 47-66

   3. Irrigation Water Demand

      1. Hedonic Price Analysis and Selectivity Bias: Water Salinity and Demand for Land

         • Phoebe Koundouri, Panos Pashardes

         Pages 69-80

4. Water Efficiency

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 81-81

      PDF

   2. Measurement of Water Efficiency

      1. Measuring Irrigation Water Efficiency with a Stochastic Production Frontier: An Application to Greek Out-of-Season Vegetable Cultivation

         • G. Karagiannis, V. Tzouvelekas, A. Xepapadeas

         Pages 85-101

   3. Efficient Use and Management of Water

      1. Strategic Behavior and Efficiency in the Common Property Extraction of Groundwater

         • Santiago J. Rubio, Begoña Casino

         Pages 105-122

      2. Demand-Side Technology Standards under Inefficient Pricing Regimes: Are They Effective Water Conservation Tools in the Long-Run?

         • Christopher Timmins

         Pages 123-146

5. Water Management Policies

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 147-147

      PDF

   2. Water as a Multifaceted Resource — Horizontal management Considerations

      1. Joint Quantity/Quality Management of Groundwater

         • Catarina Roseta Palma

         Pages 151-170

      2. Missing Markets and Redundant Reservoirs: Dams as a Consequence of Inefficient Groundwater Management Policies

         • Ben Groom, Tim Swanson

         Pages 171-192

   3. Water as an Industrial management Problem — Vertical Considerations

      1. Regulation of Public Utilities under Asymmetric Information: The Case of Municipal Water Supply in France

         • Serge Garcia, Alban Thomas

         Pages 195-217

   4. Water Policy and Water Practice — Second Best

      1. Policy Instruments for Groundwater Management for Agriculture and Nature in the Netherlands

         • Petra J. G. J. Hellegers, Ekko C. Van Ierland

         Pages 221-232

6. Back Matter

   Pages 233-234

   PDF

The marginal price elasticities estimated by Martinez-Espineira conforms to expectation. The price specification that accounts for the changing proportion of water users in each block yields a higher elasticity (-0. 47) compared to the spec­ ification ignoring this feature of the data. However, this difference is not found to be statistically significant, a result attributed to the low power of the test (small sample size limiting the accuracy of estimates). In conclusion, the paper provides a theoretically correct price specification for demand functions under block pricing and aggregate data. The empirical findings in the paper, however, are not conclusive and further empirical work using more data and alternative (nonlinear) demand functions, is needed to show the practical implications of the arguments put forward by the Martinez-Espineira's paper. Static empirical consumer demand functions estimated with aggregate data are well known to suffer form serial correlation and other statistical problems asso­ ciated with misspecified dynamics. These dynamics arise because consumers do not react immediately to a change in prices due to their largely predetermined lifestyle. In the case of demand for water, for example, current purchases can be largely predetermined due to commitments arising from past purchases such as swimming pools, bathtubs, dishwashing machines, etc. Muellbauer and Pashardes (1992) show that the autoregressive nature of consumer demand data can be cap­ tured in a theoretically consistent manner by incorporating intertemporal aspects of consumer behaviour in the model through habit formation and durability.

• Conservation
• Water Resources
• Water policy
• Water resource management
• groundwater
• production
• hydrogeology

• Department of Economics, University of Cyprus, Republic of Cyprus

  Panos Pashardes

• University College London, UK

  Timothy Swanson

• Department of Economics, University of Crete, Greece

  Anastasios Xepapadeas

Policies and ethics