1887

OECD Environment Working Papers

This series is designed to make available to a wider readership selected studies on environmental issues prepared for use within the OECD. Authorship is usually collective, but principal authors are named. The papers are generally available only in their original language English or French with a summary in the other if available.

English

Addressing the social consequences of tariffs for water supply and sanitation

Where they exist, tariffs for water supply and sanitation services face a tension between different policy objectives, such as ensuring the financial sustainability of service provision and ensuring access to all, including vulnerable and poor social groups. Governments (local and national) resort to a range of measures to reconcile these objectives and address social consequences of tariffs: tariff levels and structures, nudging, budgetary transfers, targeted social measures. The paper revisits most common practices and discusses their pros and cons, and requisites to make them work. It provides up-to-date analyses on a series of related issues, such as definitions of affordability, principle for cost recovery, benefits and costs of metering, elasticity of domestic water use to prices, fiscal transfers to water services. The paper is informed by recent academic research, data on selected countries, and interactions with OECD bodies.

English

JEL: H54: Public Economics / National Government Expenditures and Related Policies / National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: Infrastructures; Other Public Investment and Capital Stock; L95: Industrial Organization / Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities / Gas Utilities; Pipelines; Water Utilities; D12: Microeconomics / Household Behavior and Family Economics / Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis; Q58: Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics / Environmental Economics / Environmental Economics: Government Policy; H53: Public Economics / National Government Expenditures and Related Policies / Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs; H4: Public Economics / Publicly Provided Goods; Q53: Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics / Environmental Economics / Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling; H23: Public Economics / Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue / Taxation and Subsidies: Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies; L98: Industrial Organization / Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities / Industry Studies: Utilities and Transportation: Government Policy; D63: Microeconomics / Welfare Economics / Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
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