Dissertation Study

Since my days as a graduate student at the University of Colorado, I operated at the interface between economics and engineering in the water field. Indeed, my PhD dissertation advisers were Morris E. Garnsey, a Professor of Economics, and J. Ernest Flack, a Professor of Civil Engineering. For my dissertation, Garnsey influenced me to study the effects of water meters, moving from a zero marginal price of water per gallon to a positive marginal price. Due to detailed handwritten meter records, organised by route and stored in the city’s Municipal Hall, it was possible to observe water use before and after installation at the household level.

I digitised these records and constructed a time-series dataset that allowed estimation of residential water demand under changing price conditions. The analysis controlled for engineering and environmental factors, such as soil characteristics affecting outdoor irrigation, that influenced water use independently of price. This approach was the first sophisticated time-series study of the effect of water meter installation on water use.