Conference Agenda

Private water providers’ social welfare policies have been increasingly implemented in the UK. Faced with increased water prices and pressures to increase water efficiency, this paper examines the behaviour of households across Yorkshire, UK. This paper the effects of the ‘help to pay’ policy from Yorkshire Water on household water consumption that is aimed at low-income households facing a fixed unit price. This study uses data for around 7,800 Yorkshire Water-supplied households between 2018 and 2020 through Regression Discontinuity and Difference-in-Difference approaches. Using household characteristics, social characteristics at the regional level and weather-related information such as rainfall and temperature, this study explains household water consumption behaviour on and around the £350 water bill, per year, water utility-imposed threshold. Results indicate a discontinuity in annual household water consumption around the threshold, and it is shown that the ‘help to pay’ scheme results in higher water consumption for treated households (19.8k litres/household/year) while, through falsification tests, evidence exists of strategic behaviour of household around the threshold. With water bills around the UK scheduled to increase by up to 40% in the coming years, this research provides valuable insights into the potential changes in bill support criteria such as thresholds used by water companies such as Yorkshire Water would need to implement, as well as insights on potential strategic behaviour on behalf of households knowing they are close to the threshold to receive bill support.

Private household water and energy use are closely linked, especially in areas of intermittent water supply where more than one billion people live globally. However, few studies have explicitly discussed the linkages between household water and energy demand from an economic perspective, and the demand-side Water-Energy Nexus at the household level is often overlooked in empirical econometric studies. Based on the household production theory, we develop a conceptual economic framework to systematically understand the Water-Energy Nexus at the private household level. We conduct a household survey (n=1872) on water and energy in the Pune Metropolitan Region, India, and find statistical relationships between intermittent water supply and household electricity demand. More than 90% of the surveyed households use water storage to cope with water supply intermittency, low-income households are particularly affected. Electricity consumption for water access accounts for 27% of total household electricity consumption. Using a Discrete-Continuous Choice model, we identify significant impacts from factors such as household size and income, electricity price, and particularly the duration of water supply and the use of large water storage on household electricity demand. Our results indicate that households with 24-hour water access consume 30% less electricity than those with 12-hour daily access. Extending municipal piped water supply by one hour per day for all households could reduce total household electricity consumption by 3%. Our findings suggest that water supply intermittency is a massive cause of unnecessary emissions in cities around the world that has thus far received hardly any attention. The significant amount of electricity used to access water reveals a hidden water affordability problem that can be more prevalent during droughts. Our analyses highlight the demand-side Water-Energy Nexus from an econometric perspective and emphasize the importance of breaking down silos in resource management.

Sub-Saharan Africa continues to face the world's lowest rate of safely managed water despite considerable efforts to enhance water access in the region. This study sheds light on households' water sources use practices and examines the factors influencing their decisions regarding water supply in a context of abundant and diverse water resources. To this end, we exploit an original and unique panel dataset that combines household survey data with geolocated information on all water sources available to each household across ten Kinshasa outskirts. Between 2018 and 2021, water supply improved considerably in the study area due to a large water infrastructure project and the construction of private borewells. To better understand household preferences, we estimate discrete choice models that account for multiple water source use (MWSU) and consider the possible interdependence between available alternatives. We also estimate household fixed effects models to analyze how changing water supply between the two dates affects households' water source use practices and choices. The findings offer new insights into households' water sources use practices and water supply decisions in a Sub-Saharan African setting. We demonstrate that households choose more than one water source simultaneously. More specifically, we show that, for drinking purposes, households first choose the type of water source based on their characteristics before selecting an alternative within this type based on source attributes. Contrary to earlier studies, we find that, in addition to household characteristics, the presence, number, distance to, and price of all available sources, including the non-chosen, play a significant role in household multiple water source use decisions in 2018 and 2021. The observed choices exhibit a negative correlation between improved and unimproved sources, suggesting that households resort to unimproved sources when access to improved ones is limited. While MWSU and supplemental unimproved source use (SUSU) remain relatively widespread among households in the study area, households with better-quality sources nearby are less likely to engage in MWSU and SUSU practices.