Modeling Quality and Price Perception in the Choice of Drinking Water in France: A Hybrid Choice Model Approach

Abstract

The water resources literature usually discards the important price difference between bottled water and tap water as a predictor of drinking water choice. In France, bottled water is about 100 times more expensive than tap water. Using 4,003 survey responses, we model water resources quality (mis)‐perception and water price (mis)‐perceptions by means of a hybrid choice model. We show that respondents who are more likely to consider the quality of water resources as “very poor” or “poor” are less likely to drink tap water. Furthermore, we find that respondents who do not report the correct price difference between tap water and bottled water are more likely to drink bottled water, which is a novel finding, as significant price effects of this type have never been reported in the literature on drinking water choice.