Domanda e tariffe nel settore idrico italiano: un’analisi di sensitività sui Piani d’ambito

The Piano d’ambito is a fundamental instrument for the planning and the management of the integrated water service. Given the evolution of demand, it allows local authorities to define the tariff structure necessary to grant the equilibrium between costs and revenues. Analysing an unbalanced panel data concerning 46 Piani d’ambito observed for 5 to 30 years (1024 total observations), the objective of this work is to verify if the water consumption forecasts are coherent with the available empirical literature. The econometric analysis highlights an implicit demand elasticity equal to 0, and an unjustified growth of per-capita levels of water consumption. With the formulation of more realistic demand scenarios, the problem of budget equilibrium emerges for almost all considered Ambitos, with obvious consequences on planned investments or, alternatively, on tariffs. Under alternative hypothesis, we estimate on average a shortcoming of revenues from 10% to 16% with respect to the budget plans.;

Graziano Abrate, Giovanni Fraquelli, Domanda e tariffe nel settore idrico italiano: un’analisi di sensitività sui Piani d’ambito in "ECONOMIA PUBBLICA " 3-4/2007, pp 119-132, DOI: