Laura Morales

Laura Morales is a PhD student in Urban and Regional Planning. Her research interest includes water affordability and collaborative resource management. Laura earned a Master’s in Public Affairs at Indiana University at Bloomington and bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Texas A&M University.

Laura believes it is crucial to understand the spatial patters of social inequality that are associated with water affordability while simultaneously balancing cost recovery and pricing expectations of utilities/ regulators. Laura hopes to further elaborate on the feasibility and effectiveness of existing frameworks that exist from a land economics perspective. As water suppliers grapple with cost recovery and regulators set prices, the economic efficiency of expanding or maintaining services declines. Building a framework that allows a utility to balance these expectations would not only be applicable to US but could be a scalable solution for developing settings.