"It takes hundreds of nuts to hold a car together, but it takes only one of them to scatter it all over the highway." - Evan Esar

***

Pimping for someone I don't know:


Love for Water Survey- please participate!

Dear Economists,

Recently, the global freshwater crisis issue has received much international media attention. Notably, the Scientific American has published an in-depth report at http://www.sciam.com/report.cfm?id=water

In addition, the New York Times Freakonomics column has been debating whether "Is Water Too Cheap?" at
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/is-water-too-cheap/

A typical policy prescription is the idea of "rising block tariffs" whereby users pay higher volumetric charge to excessive consumption. However, I would like to highlight the flip dimension of rewarding individuals for making an effort to save water.

This is relevant to the burgeoning literature on behavioural economics, where the assumptions of a Homo-economicus individual has been thoroughly dissected. Lets face it. Humans are not fully rational all the time. Is there a room for using non-monetary incentives to motivate individual behaviour?

Employing tools using the stated choices methods (a micro-econometric technique for elicit individual stated preferences), I aim to find out individual's willingness to accept (WTA) as compensation for adopting water saving measures with a novel combination of choice sets.

Look forward to YOUR participation in this short survey which takes no longer than 10 minutes. Survey will close in 3 days time on the 6th August. As a way of saying thanks, I am giving out 3 Amazon discount vouchers worth £20. Good luck!

Please forward this to ALL your friends!
----------------------------------------

"Love for Water" survey

The purpose of this exploratory study is to investigate whether incentives can influence domestic water use behaviour. "Love for Water" idealises the notion of sustainable water consumption.

To enter the survey, please go to http://loveforwater.org. You will also stand a chance to win a £20 Amazon discount voucher! Please help to circulate the link around your friends. Survey will close on the 6 August 2008.

(Xin Wei is a Singaporean student currently reading MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management at the University of Oxford)