Studio della domanda di servizi di pubblica utilità : un'analisi panel dei consumi residenziali di acqua ed energia elettrica

The present work analyses the determinants of water and electricity demand for residential purposes in an Italian region. This thesis analyses a dataset on water consumption in 240 municipalities for a period of 6 years (2000-2005) and a dataset of electricity consumption in 374 municipalities for a period of 11 years (1995-2005), using aggregated data. The aim is to estimate the value of the price elasticity, of the income elasticity, and to analyse the influence of socio-economic, demographic, structural, climate variables on consumption levels and trends. We analyse also the cross-price elasticity of other fuels and the influence of heating systems (central vs single, fuel used) on electricity consumptions, and the influence of management practices applied by water utilities on water consumption. The FEVD (Fixed Effect Vector Decomposition) procedure, recently proposed by Plumper and Troeger (2007), is adopted to estimate panel data characterised by the presence of time invariant variables, or variables which vary rarely in time. FEVD results are compared to other static panel estimators. Results obtained can be useful to elaborate future policies and management practices.