| Practice area: | Competition & Antitrust | Regulatory economics | Water and sewerage |
|---|---|
| Client: | LE Working Paper |
| Published: | April, 2002 |
| Keywords: | quantitative analysis |
A mixed-effects residential demand model for potable water is developed using a longitudinal data set constructed for the analysis. The data set comprises of 1,065 households from the Sydney Metropolitan and Wollongong areas, covering sixteen quarters from 1990 to 1994. The purpose of developing the demand model is to use it as a base model to forecast water demand changes in response to changes in the tariff structure.
The empirical results show that consumers do respond to the marginal price while faced with the multipart tariff structure. Therefore price can be considered as an influential tool in the implementation of demand management strategies. However the magnitude of price elasticity suggests that substantial increases in price would be required to influence demand.