这是我的一个Paper的提要

The Dragon is Thirsty: Water Scarcity, Institutional Changes and Residential Water Demand in the Major Cities of China

Abstract:

With a rapid economic growth of more than 9% per year in the past two decades, China’s further economic expansion is inevitably facing the constraints of limited resources, specifically water resources. Serious water scarcity is plaguing China from rural through urban areas, bringing huge losses to the booming economy and a lack of potable water for the large and growing population.

To deal with increasing water scarcity, China has taken several measures, including overhauling an outdated water law system, reforming an inefficient administrative system, carrying out large water-diversion projects, and, perhaps most importantly, trying to institute a sustainable water pricing system, such as raising previously low water rates and introducing increasing-block rate pricing.

So far, most of the literature on water use in China focuses on the agricultural sector, and little research has been done on the urban sector, mainly due to data unavailability and previously uniform water rates. With uniform rates it is impossible to evaluate the impacts of changes in water rates on water use.

Following methodologies used in existing empirical studies of water use in other countries, this study constructs a two-good theoretical economic model and employs panel data to estimate the determinants of residential water demand in 35 major Chinese cities. The use of panel data overcomes the statistical difficulty of uniform water rates during any given year, because water rates have been changing over time. The econometric results indicate that the income elasticity of water demand is between 0.36 and 0.45, and tends to increase as income increases. This result implies that water use will increase at an accelerating rate as China continues to develop economically, unless other policy reforms are introduced to slow the growth in water demand. The econometric results also indicate that the price elasticity of water demand is between -1.36 and -0.002, and tends to decrease as the water rate increases. This result implies that water demand is fairly responsive to changes in water rates, and shows the importance of water pricing reform in China.

谢谢！我会仔细研读一下。

水资源的调配问题，牵扯到一个关键问题，就是水的使用权问题。

淡水资源本身在一定时间限度内由于无限供给弹性，是没有价格的。