Measuring the Income Elasticity of Water Demand: The Importance of Publication and Endogeneity Biases

Tomas Havranek, Zuzana Irsova and Tomas Vlach

Land Economics, 2018, vol. 94, issue 2, 259-283

Abstract: We present the first study that examines the effects of publication selection in the literature estimating the income elasticity of water demand. Paradoxically, more affected by publication selection are the otherwise preferable estimates that control for endogeneity. Attempting to correct simultaneously for publication and endogeneity biases, we find that the mean underlying elasticity is approximately 0.15 or less. The result is robust to controlling for more than 30 characteristics of the estimates and accounting for model uncertainty. The differences in the reported estimates are systematically driven by differences in the tariff structure, regional coverage, data granularity, and control for temperature.

JEL-codes: C83 Q25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
Note: DOI: 10.3368/le.94.2.259
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (40)

Downloads: (external link)
http://le.uwpress.org/cgi/reprint/94/2/259
A subscription is required to access pdf files. Pay per article is available.

Related works:
Working Paper: Measuring the Income Elasticity of Water Demand: The Importance of Publication and Endogeneity Biases (2017)
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:uwp:landec:v:94:y:2018:i:2:p:259-283

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Land Economics from University of Wisconsin Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().