Owner vs. tenant paid utilities

[Will Barnard]

This is a debate that occurs often in the 50% rule.
Some argue that with owner paid utilities, your expense ratio could very well be much higher than the average 50% while others argue that the rental rate increase for owner paid utilities makes the utility cost average back out to 50%.

I personally do not have any verifiable data to back up either argument but my opinion has always been that owner paid utilities gives tenants 0 incentive to conserve and even increased rents could not prevent expense ratios from climbing higher than 50% averages.

What are your thoughts?