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Monteiro, H., Rita Martins, Ramalho, J.J.S. & Esmeralda Ramalho (2016). The impact of price and consumption awareness on residential water demand. 10th Annual Meeting of the Portuguese Economic Journal.

H. P. Monteiro et al.,  "The impact of price and consumption awareness on residential water demand", in 10th Annu. Meeting of the Portuguese Economic Journal, Coimbra, 2016

@misc{monteiro2016_1732202251015,
	author = "Monteiro, H. and Rita Martins and Ramalho, J.J.S. and Esmeralda Ramalho",
	title = "The impact of price and consumption awareness on residential water demand",
	year = "2016",
	howpublished = "Outro",
	url = "http://www.uc.pt/en/feuc/PEJ2016"
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - The impact of price and consumption awareness on residential water demand
T2  - 10th Annual Meeting of the Portuguese Economic Journal
AU  - Monteiro, H.
AU  - Rita Martins
AU  - Ramalho, J.J.S.
AU  - Esmeralda Ramalho
PY  - 2016
CY  - Coimbra
UR  - http://www.uc.pt/en/feuc/PEJ2016
AB  - The vast literature estimating residential water demand assumes households are aware of and respond to changes in the tariffs or at least in the average price paid. We show that although water consumption does respond to prices, water conservation can also be promoted by making the consumer more aware of the price paid and the level of consumption.
We estimate a discrete continuous choice model of residential water demand with Portuguese household level survey data combined with information from water utilities and from the Portuguese meteorological agency. 
We find price and income elasticities to be ?0.20 and +0.07, respectively. Nevertheless, the rigidity of demand doesn’t establish the limit of the role that tariffs can have in promoting water conservation. We find that households who are aware of the actual unit price and their consumption level, look at their (electronic) water bill frequently and in detail and pay by direct debit consume on average 53% less. 
We also provide novel findings on the impact of environmentally-friendly behaviors, rainwater harvesting and availability of alternative water sources. The impacts of weather variables and dwelling and household features are also calculated. We find economies of scale in water consumption related to household size.

ER  -