2001/06/01 by Karen Bakker · 158 citations
Engineering · Social Sciences · #Business #Closing (real estate) #Commodity #Economics #Equity (law) #Equity theory #Finance #Intergenerational equity #Market economy #Microeconomics #Political science #Public economics #Social and Economic Development in India #Social equality #Sustainability #Water Governance and Infrastructure #Water resources management and optimization #Water supply
paper · doi:10.1111/1475-5661.00012
published in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 26(2), 143-164 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2001/06/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Over the past three decades, the business of water supply in England and Wales has been gradually transforming from the supply of a service to citizens, to the sale of a commodity to customers. The paper provides a genealogy of concepts of efficiency and equity in water regulation over the past thirty years, prior to evaluating the implications for water consumers of one aspect of this process – the shift away from policies prioritizing inter‐ and intra‐regional equalization (implying a principle of social equity) towards policies prioritizing economic efficiency (implying a principle of economic equity) in water charging. In closing, alternatives to the current arrangements for domestic consumers are proposed.