Addressing the social consequences of tariffs for water supply and sanitation

Xavier Leflaive and Marit Hjort
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Xavier Leflaive: OECD
Marit Hjort: OECD

No 166, OECD Environment Working Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: Where they exist, tariffs for water supply and sanitation services face a tension between different policy objectives, such as ensuring the financial sustainability of service provision and ensuring access to all, including vulnerable and poor social groups. Governments (local and national) resort to a range of measures to reconcile these objectives and address social consequences of tariffs: tariff levels and structures, nudging, budgetary transfers, targeted social measures. The paper revisits most common practices and discusses their pros and cons, and requisites to make them work. It provides up-to-date analyses on a series of related issues, such as definitions of affordability, principle for cost recovery, benefits and costs of metering, elasticity of domestic water use to prices, fiscal transfers to water services. The paper is informed by recent academic research, data on selected countries, and interactions with OECD bodies.

JEL-codes: D12 D63 H23 H4 H53 H54 L95 L98 Q53 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-06-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-reg
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:envaaa:166-en

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