Investigating the Water Conservation Decision
نویسنده
چکیده
Increased water scarcity implies that residents of arid, heavily populated regions of the U.S. will have to increase water conservation or else face the consequence of water shortfalls. Voluntarily conserved water is an impure public good since it is non-excludable and rival in consumption. This means that water conservation benefits are subject to free-riding behavior. This paper considers a demand side, non-price management alternative to promote water conservation and mitigate free-riding. With experimental economics and a voluntary conservation mechanism, modified from the voluntary contributions mechanism, we explore the extent to which community interaction matters. In a context rich, induced value environment participants are asked to allocate water between their group’s public source and private use. The three treatments, group size, information, and communication, simulate actions a water planner could take to promote conservation. Participants are recruited from the adult, Albuquerque New Mexico population on and off the campus of the University of New Mexico yet all experiment sessions were conducted at the university. The results show that small group size and communication promote conservation however the role of information is mixed. We think these results are significant for water resource managers since they provide another tool on the path to water sustainability.
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