This study analyses the industrial demand for urban water using a panel dataset of firms operating in the city of Zaragoza (Spain) and looking at three sectors (manufacturing, construction and services) disaggregated on 24 subsectors. Evidence in favour of using the marginal price rather than the average price is obtained, and the selection of the price is found to influence the value of the elasticities. Based on a translog cost function, the direct price elasticity of water (−0.86), the output elasticity (0.73) and the cross-price elasticities between water and capital, labour and supplies (being all of them substitutes) were estimated. By subsectors, the influence of price is only significant in those with a higher share of water in the total production cost. These results indicate that pricing can be used as a tool for managing water demand by promoting conservation of the resource. However, these results also indicate that the simultaneous use of other instruments is advisable to reinforce the impact of pricing policy on water consumption.

本研究使用在西班牙萨拉戈萨市运营的公司的面板数据集，分析了按24个子行业分类的三个行业（制造，建筑和服务），分析了城市用水的工业需求。获得了支持使用边际价格而不是平均价格的证据，并且发现价格的选择会影响弹性值。基于超对数成本函数，估算了水的直接价格弹性（-0.86），输出弹性（0.73）和水与资本，劳动力和供给（都是替代品）之间的交叉价格弹性。按子行业，价格的影响仅在总生产成本中水份额较高的那些行业中才是重要的。这些结果表明，通过促进资源节约，可以将定价用作管理水需求的工具。但是，这些结果还表明，建议同时使用其他工具来加强定价政策对水消耗的影响。