The impact of announcing a payment assistance program on UK household water consumption: A regression discontinuity analysis

IF 3.8 3区经济学 Q3 ENERGY & FUELS

Utilities Policy Pub Date : 2025-05-27 DOI:10.1016/j.jup.2025.101981

Emmanouil Tyllianakis , Nikos Rigas , Konstantinos E. Kounetas

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Information campaigns aimed at social norms are a mainstay tool for utilities. The announcement effect of such policies is usually ignored in favour of ex-post examinations of campaigns' outcomes. This paper examines the effects of announcing a ‘help-to-pay’ program from a United Kingdom (UK) water utility company for households facing a uniform price for water. This study uses data for around 6000 Yorkshire Water households between 2018 and 2020, adopting cross-sectional Regression Discontinuity (RD) and regression approaches. Leveraging household characteristics, social characteristics and weather-related information such as rainfall and temperature at the regional level, this study explains household water consumption behaviour on and around the announced £350 per year water bill threshold. Results indicate a discontinuity in annual household water consumption around the threshold, and announcing the eligibility criteria of the help-to-pay program results in higher water consumption for households meeting some criteria (11.9k litres/household/year). Through falsification tests, evidence exists of household strategic behaviour around the threshold. With water bills in the UK scheduled to increase by up to 40 % in the coming years, this research provides valuable insights into the effect that announcing bill support schemes can have and insights on potential strategic behaviour on behalf of households attempting to offset costs.

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宣布支付援助计划对英国家庭用水的影响：一个回归不连续分析

针对社会规范的宣传运动是公用事业的主要工具。这些政策的宣布效果通常被忽视，而倾向于对竞选结果进行事后审查。本文考察了英国一家水务公司对面临统一水价的家庭宣布一项“帮助支付”计划的影响。本研究使用了2018年至2020年约6000个约克郡水务家庭的数据，采用了横断面回归不连续（RD）和回归方法。利用家庭特征、社会特征和与天气相关的信息，如地区层面的降雨量和温度，这项研究解释了家庭在宣布的每年350英镑水费阈值上下的用水行为。结果表明，家庭年用水量在阈值附近不连续性，宣布帮助支付计划的资格标准导致满足某些标准的家庭的用水量增加（11.9万升/户/年）。通过证伪检验，证明家庭战略行为存在于阈值附近。由于英国的水费预计在未来几年将增加40%，这项研究为宣布账单支持计划可能产生的影响以及代表家庭试图抵消成本的潜在战略行为提供了有价值的见解。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Utilities Policy ENERGY & FUELS-ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

CiteScore

6.80

自引率

10.00%

发文量

审稿时长

66 days

期刊介绍： Utilities Policy is deliberately international, interdisciplinary, and intersectoral. Articles address utility trends and issues in both developed and developing economies. Authors and reviewers come from various disciplines, including economics, political science, sociology, law, finance, accounting, management, and engineering. Areas of focus include the utility and network industries providing essential electricity, natural gas, water and wastewater, solid waste, communications, broadband, postal, and public transportation services. Utilities Policy invites submissions that apply various quantitative and qualitative methods. Contributions are welcome from both established and emerging scholars as well as accomplished practitioners. Interdisciplinary, comparative, and applied works are encouraged. Submissions to the journal should have a clear focus on governance, performance, and/or analysis of public utilities with an aim toward informing the policymaking process and providing recommendations as appropriate. Relevant topics and issues include but are not limited to industry structures and ownership, market design and dynamics, economic development, resource planning, system modeling, accounting and finance, infrastructure investment, supply and demand efficiency, strategic management and productivity, network operations and integration, supply chains, adaptation and flexibility, service-quality standards, benchmarking and metrics, benefit-cost analysis, behavior and incentives, pricing and demand response, economic and environmental regulation, regulatory performance and impact, restructuring and deregulation, and policy institutions.