Policy Note: A Universal Equity–Efficiency Model for Pricing Water

Drawing on theoretical, practical, and normative rationales, the analysis presented here calls for revisiting the prevailing water service paradigm, and the values and frames it reflects. As is increasingly apparent, current pricing policies may not be sufficiently responsive, pragmatic, or durable, particularly in reconciling competing objectives often cast as the equity–efficiency conundrum. Water is a social good that confers both private and public benefits. The proposed universal (all-inclusive) pricing model envisions five concurrent elements: recognize public functionality in cost allocation (scope economies), calibrate a minimum bill to property assessment (capacity value), provide an essential-use allowance for all households (public health), design cost-based rates for variable water usage (resource management), and prohibit disconnection and deploy service limiters instead (water security). The model advances meaningful structural progress toward social equity while comporting with generally accepted principles to fairly allocate costs and send economic price signals where they make sense.

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Eco-Labels: Modeling the Consumer Side

Annual Review of Resource Economics ◽

10.1146/annurev-resource-110319-115158 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 187-207

Author(s):

Klaas van 't Veld

Keyword(s):

Social Psychology ◽

Behavioral Economics ◽

Market Research ◽

Large Body ◽

Spillover Effects ◽

Relative Importance ◽

Private Benefits ◽

Public Benefits ◽

Complex Picture ◽

Private And Public

The theoretical literature analyzing eco-label programs has focused mainly on how intricate interactions between firms, eco-label certifiers, and regulators shape these programs’ economic and environmental outcomes. Far less attention has been paid to the consumer side, which has typically been modeled very simply. Meanwhile, empirical researchers in behavioral economics, social psychology, and market research have accumulated a large body of empirical evidence that paints a rich, complex picture of that consumer. In this review, I survey a range of these empirical findings, as well as attempts by theorists to incorporate them in their models. The survey is organized around three themes: ( a) varieties of consumer ignorance, ( b) context dependence of consumer motivations, and ( c) motivational spillover effects across time and people. I also touch on the relative importance of private and public benefits of eco-label programs and on the debate over whether the private benefits should even be counted in welfare.

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How effective are the new WASH security guidelines for India? An empirical case study of Andhra Pradesh

Water Policy ◽

10.2166/wp.2013.147 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 15 (4) ◽

pp. 535-553 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

V. Kurian Baby ◽

V. Ratna Reddy

Keyword(s):

Service Delivery ◽

Capital Investment ◽

Water Security ◽

Point Of View ◽

Special Focus ◽

Capital Maintenance ◽

Household Level ◽

Sanitation And Hygiene ◽

Operations And Maintenance ◽

Private And Public

India has been making policies relating to the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector since independence. The 2010 policy guidelines for the water and sanitation sectors have embarked on a new path of water security by identifying and emphasizing the importance of hitherto nagging bottlenecks in sustainable service delivery. This paper attempts to assess these policy guidelines critically and suggest ways to make them effective from the point of view of putting them into operation. This paper argues the following. (i) WASH sector financing needs to be addressed directly with realistic assessment of unit costs and their composition. (ii) Within the WASH sector sanitation needs special focus in terms of planning and allocations. Treating sanitation as an add-on to water would not be enough to improve the sanitation and hygiene conditions. The approach to sanitation needs to be focused on creating demand at the household level, segregating private and public responsibilities in this regard. (iii) Although the new guidelines try to bring a much needed balance between the cost components of new capital investment, they are not clear about post-construction support, especially capital maintenance and ring fencing the allocations towards O&M (operations and maintenance), as well as emphasizing that capital maintenance is critical for sustainable service delivery.

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Studying from Home? Do Private and Public Benefits Go Side by Side?

Modern Economy ◽

10.4236/me.2018.98090 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 09 (08) ◽

pp. 1423-1438

Author(s):

George Agiomirgianakis ◽

Georgios Bertsatos ◽

Fay Makantasi ◽

Athanasios Mihiotis ◽

Nicholas Tsounis

Keyword(s):

Public Benefits ◽

Private And Public

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Commemorative Events and Public Rituals: Redefining our Leisure Engagement with Violent Death as Healing Practice and/through Social Activism

Event Management ◽

10.3727/152599521x16192004803692 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Elspeth Frew ◽

Kirsty Forsdike

Keyword(s):

Violence Against Women ◽

Social Activism ◽

Leisure Activity ◽

Violent Death ◽

Public Event ◽

Social Good ◽

Therapeutic Practice ◽

High Profile ◽

Private And Public ◽

Leisure Engagement

The paper examines the concepts of public grief and social activism in the context of commemorative events, such as candlelight vigils. These candlelight vigils can be viewed as a form of leisure activity as individuals freely chose to attend the event during their free time. Attending such events has the potential to provide therapy to the attendees and contribute towards their wellbeing, similar to the phenomenon of individuals visiting roadside memorials and locally created shrines following an unexpected and/or violent death. The paper focuses on the candlelight vigils held to commemorate high profile murders of women as part of the violence against women focus in Victoria, Australia. These events also provide attendees with the opportunity to engage in social activism, reinforcing that these events provide the opportunity to engage in a blend of both private and public mourning; and may encourage social good via activism which also may be a form of therapeutic practice for wellbeing. The paper introduces the concept of grief leisure as a way to conceptualise the attendance at public event vigils as a therapeutic practice to help deal with grief.

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The Private Provision of Missing Public Goods

10.1093/oso/9780199476084.003.0003 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Tarun Khanna ◽

Budhaditya Gupta

Keyword(s):

Quality Care ◽

Public Life ◽

Public Infrastructure ◽

Private Business ◽

Market Institutions ◽

Private Provision ◽

Public Benefits ◽

Private And Public ◽

Factor Inputs ◽

Indigent Population

This chapter explores the long-standing puzzle of the optimal role and impact of private business in public life based on evidence from a healthcare entrepreneur in India. To realize its goal of delivering affordable, high-quality care to the indigent population in India, Narayana Health (NH) had to address a number of voids created by the absence of supporting market institutions. This was done with entrepreneurial aplomb, sometimes even catalysing governmental action, by becoming a trusted intermediary to providers of all sorts of factor inputs who would otherwise not make their services available. This partial private provision of public infrastructure by NH illustrates how social investments by resource-constrained entrepreneurs in emerging markets can yield both private and public benefits.

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Urban Water Security Assessment Using an Integrated Metabolism Approach—Case Study of the National Capital Territory of Delhi in India

Resources ◽

10.3390/resources8020062 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 62 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Ruchira Ghosh ◽

Arun Kansal ◽

G Venkatesh

Keyword(s):

Water System ◽

Water Security ◽

Policy Formulation ◽

Urban Water ◽

Security Assessment ◽

City Region ◽

Social Good ◽

Urban Water System ◽

The City

Water is a non substitutable resource and a social good, which governments must perforce provide to its citizens in the right quantity and quality. An integrated urban metabolism model is useful in understanding the status quo of an urban water and sanitation system. By defining and measuring the values of relevant hydrological performance indicators—deliverables of the model referred to—a thorough knowledge of the present performance and the gaps, which need to be plugged en route to a sustainable urban water infrastructure, can be obtained, as demonstrated in this paper. This then forms the bedrock for decision-making and policy formulation for change to be introduced top-down as well as advice, which would enable the much needed bottom-up support to policies. The authors have chosen Delhi as the case study city, but would like to point out that this application can be reproduced for any other town/city/region of the world. The water balance within the chosen system boundaries shows that the annual unutilized flows, amounting to 1443 million cubic meters, dominate the metabolic flows of water in Delhi, and the annual groundwater withdrawal, which exceeds 420 million cubic meters, is much greater than the recharge rate, resulting in a rapid depletion of the groundwater level. There is an urgent need thereby to improve the rate of infiltration of stormwater and reduce the rate of runoff by focusing on increasing the share of permeable surfaces in the city, as well as to consider the wastewater streams as potential sources of water, while not forgetting demand side of management measures, as the pressure on the urban water system in the city is likely to intensify with a combination of population growth, economic development, and climate change in the near future. The recommendations provided by the authors towards the end of the article, can, if suitable measures are undertaken and robust policies are implemented, result in Delhi’s enjoying a water surplus in the short term, and progressively attain complete sustainability with regard to the utilization of its water resources.

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Acting as a benefit corporation and a B Corp to responsibly pursue private and public benefits. The case of Paradisi Srl (Italy)

International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility ◽

10.1186/s40991-019-0042-y ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Mara Del Baldo

Keyword(s):

Public Benefits ◽

Benefit Corporation ◽

Private And Public

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The Pseudomonas aeruginosa PSL Polysaccharide Is a Social but Noncheatable Trait in Biofilms

mBio ◽

10.1128/mbio.00374-17 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 8 (3) ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Yasuhiko Irie ◽

Aled E. L. Roberts ◽

Kasper N. Kragh ◽

Vernita D. Gordon ◽

Jaime Hutchison ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Pseudomonas Aeruginosa ◽

Quorum Sensing ◽

Public Goods ◽

Structural Integrity ◽

Population Level ◽

Social Benefits ◽

Extracellular Polysaccharides ◽

Public Benefits ◽

Private And Public ◽

Fitness Benefits

ABSTRACT Extracellular polysaccharides are compounds secreted by microorganisms into the surrounding environment, and they are important for surface attachment and maintaining structural integrity within biofilms. The social nature of many extracellular polysaccharides remains unclear, and it has been suggested that they could function as either cooperative public goods or as traits that provide a competitive advantage. Here, we empirically tested the cooperative nature of the PSL polysaccharide, which is crucial for the formation of biofilms in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. We show that (i) PSL is not metabolically costly to produce; (ii) PSL provides population-level benefits in biofilms, for both growth and antibiotic tolerance; (iii) the benefits of PSL production are social and are shared with other cells; (iv) the benefits of PSL production appear to be preferentially directed toward cells which produce PSL; (v) cells which do not produce PSL are unable to successfully exploit cells which produce PSL. Taken together, this suggests that PSL is a social but relatively nonexploitable trait and that growth within biofilms selects for PSL-producing strains, even when multiple strains are on a patch (low relatedness at the patch level). IMPORTANCE Many studies have shown that bacterial traits, such as siderophores and quorum sensing, are social in nature. This has led to an impression that secreted traits act as public goods, which are costly to produce but benefit both the producing cell and its surrounding neighbors. Theories and subsequent experiments have shown that such traits are exploitable by asocial cheats, but we show here that this does not always hold true. We demonstrate that the Pseudomonas aeruginosa exopolysaccharide PSL provides social benefits to populations but that it is nonexploitable, because most of the fitness benefits accrue to PSL-producing cells. Our work builds on an increasing body of work showing that secreted traits can have both private and public benefits to cells. Many studies have shown that bacterial traits, such as siderophores and quorum sensing, are social in nature. This has led to an impression that secreted traits act as public goods, which are costly to produce but benefit both the producing cell and its surrounding neighbors. Theories and subsequent experiments have shown that such traits are exploitable by asocial cheats, but we show here that this does not always hold true. We demonstrate that the Pseudomonas aeruginosa exopolysaccharide PSL provides social benefits to populations but that it is nonexploitable, because most of the fitness benefits accrue to PSL-producing cells. Our work builds on an increasing body of work showing that secreted traits can have both private and public benefits to cells.

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