Abstract:
This paper explores water pricing policy in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, in a political economy perspective. I argue that current water prices are too low and significantly below long-run marginal cost, and demonstrate that water prices must be raised significantly over the next ten years for projected demands and supplies to be in balance. I also argue that low water prices has a number of adverse allocational and distributional consequences. I then go on to discuss various (external and internal) actors' stakes in maintaining or changing the current water pricing regime, and discuss some potential mechanisms by which more efficient prices can be implemented.