Charges for Water and Access: What Explains the Differences in West Virginia Municipalities?

Elham Erfanian () and Alan Collins ()
Additional contact information
Elham Erfanian: Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University
Alan Collins: Davis College Division of Resource Management, West Virginia University

Working Papers from Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University

Abstract: Applying linear and log-log functional forms plus spatial econometric analyses to a dataset of 125 municipal water utilities, we investigate the determinants of charges for water use and minimum monthly access to water across West Virginia municipalities in 2014. Water charges models are consistent with the theory of water cost determination as water source, debt, and economies of size plus scale influence what household consumers pay for water. Based on model results, groundwater use by utilities lowers water charges and is estimated to save household 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 charges for access.

Keywords: water charges; social equity; utilities; spatial econometrics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D24 H40 Q25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2017-07-31
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/rri_pubs/32/ (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rri:wpaper:2017wp02

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Randall Jackson ().