Essays in Resource Economics

Jake Wagner

Manuscript 1 is titled, "Household demand for water in rural Kenya", and is coauthored with Joseph Cook and Peter Kimuyu. In this manuscript we use a household survey from 387 households in rural Kenya to model source choice and water demand using a discrete-continuous (linked) demand model. We find that households are sensitive to the price, proximity, taste, and availability in choosing among sources, but are not sensitive to other source qualities including color, health risk, and risk of conflict. We use the linked demand framework to estimate own-price elasticities in the rural setting. These range between -0.13 and -1.33, with a mean of -0.56, consistent with other estimates from small and large cities. Manuscript 2 is titled, "Energy efficiency information asymmetries in the rental housing market", and is a solo work. In this manuscript I exploit the variation in payment-status (who pays the energy bill), to estimate the effect of information asymmetries on the adoption of efficient (Energy Star rated) technologies in the U.S. rental housing market. Results show that, contrary to previous findings, landlords who pay their tenant's energy bill are no more likely to install energy efficient technologies, suggesting that information asymmetries play a nominal role in the adoption of efficient technologies in the rental housing market. Manuscript 3 is titled, "A linked-demand model to characterize multiple discrete-continuous demand", and is coauthored with Joseph Cook. In this manuscript we develop a reduced form multiple discrete-continuous demand model. Using this model we analyze weekly household demand for water in rural Ethiopia, and characterize four important aspects of demand: (1) total household water demand, (2) source-specific household demand, (3) aggregate water demand at each source, and (4) household preferences across source attributes. Results show that households value water quality, proximity and price in choosing which sources to collect from. Average own-price elasticity estimates from the aggregate demand analysis are found to be -0.18, and are consistent with other own-price elasticity estimates from middle- and low-income countries.

Essays in Resource Economics

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