Regional Differences in the Price Elasticity of Residential Water Demand in Spain

This paper explores the influence of regional climate variability on the elasticity of price for residential water demand in Spain. The data comes from the Spanish Survey of Family Budget (INE 2012), a national based survey of household living conditions including more than 15,000 observations. The econometric analysis included other determinants of residential water demand in Spain such as income and household characteristics. In line with the broad literature, the demand for water in Spain is found to be inelastic, although price elasticity differs notably when accounting for different climatic regions in the territory. The results have noteworthy policy implications as water pricing is considered an efficient means of long term sustainable planning of water resources management. The results imply that policy makers may have reasons to explore differentiating the impacts of water efficiency measures by region.