The socioeconomic determinants of sustainable residential water consumption in Athens: empirical results from a micro-econometric analysis

Abstract

Abstract This paper provides empirical evidence on the effects of socioeconomic characteristics on residential water consumption. The case of Athens is taken as an example for the empirical investigation, using data from the 2019 Household Budget Survey. Employing ordinary, two- and three-stage least squares, seemingly unrelated regression equations and simultaneous quantile specifications, we found that residential water demand is highly price inelastic. Furthermore, empirical results show that water consumption is positively related to household age while more educated households and unemployed persons seem to follow more environmentally friendly behaviour with respect to water demand. Income, gender, house ownership and population density seem to insignificantly affect residential water demand. Our empirical findings might have important national and regional policy implications in the design of sustainable water demand management.

Keywords

• Residential water demand
• Water sustainability
• Price elasticity
• Income elasticity
• Greece