Neoclassical economics is based on and structured around the notion of homo economicus. The theory of consumer choice, the theory of the firm, industrial organization, and welfare theorems all require the assumption that agents act in accordance with the scheme of individualistic rational optimization. In this context, our contribution is threefold. First, we delimit the notion of homo economicus according to five characteristics or dimensions. Second, we critically review this anthropological scheme from five distinct approaches, namely, behavioral economics, institutional economics, political economy, economic anthropology, and ecological economics. Third, we conclude that the scheme of homo economicus is clearly inadequate and deficient. However, despite its inadequacies, it remains one of the fundamental pillars of the neoclassical paradigm in economics, which allows us to discuss why we have not yet overcome this paradigm.

Recently, in the context of the Integrated Water Resources Management, demand policies are playing a more important role as opposed to traditional supply policies based on the construction of large hydraulic infrastructures. In this new context, water tariffs have become an important tool in achieving economic efficiency, environmental sustainability, and social equity. This paper reviews the situation of urban water tariffs in Spain, a country subject to high water stress. It analyzes the capacity of urban water tariffs to recover service costs and to promote efficiency, sustainability, affordability, and equity. Although it has made significant progress in recent years, the Spanish urban water tariff system still faces many challenges. Many of these challenges would be better addressed by a national independent regulatory body.

Studies on local services privatization have traditionally focused on factors such as pragmatic, ideological and political issues, with little attention paid to the option of policy diffusion processes. The main contribution of this paper consists of introducing the possibility that local policymakers can be influenced by policy adopted by other local governments. The presence of a policy diffusion process, which explains part of the decision to privatize, is expected. Three new variables, not considered in previous studies, are introduced in order to test three hypotheses of policy diffusion. In doing so, data from 755 municipalities in Andalusia (southern Spain) for the period 1995–2013 are used. For data analysis a Logit Multilevel Model is applied. Results confirm the importance of the mechanisms of policy diffusion when adopting privatization policies.