Household Adoption of Water-Efficient Equipment: The Role of Socio-economic Factors, Environmental Attitudes and Policy

Katrin Millock, Paris School of Economics, CNRS
Celine Nauges, Toulouse School of Economics (LERNA)

Abstract

Using survey data of 10,000 households from 10 OECD countries, we identify the driving factors of household adoption of water-efficient equipment by estimating Probit models of a household's probability to invest in such equipment. The results indicate that environmental attitudes and ownership status are strong predictors of adoption of water-efficient equipment. In terms of policy, we find that households that were both metered and charged for their water individually had a much higher probability to invest in water-efficient equipment compared to households that paid a flat fee.