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Water rights: a comparison of the impacts of urban and irrigation reforms in Australia
Author(s) -
Crase Lin,
Dollery Brian
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
australian journal of agricultural and resource economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.683
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-8489
pISSN - 1364-985X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8489.2006.00358.x
Subject(s) - scarcity , property rights , perspective (graphical) , natural resource economics , water scarcity , irrigation , environmental planning , business , economics , water resource management , geography , political science , agriculture , environmental science , market economy , law , ecology , archaeology , artificial intelligence , computer science , biology
Although there has been a policy thrust towards making all Australians more cognisant of the relative scarcity of water resources, the approach adopted for urban dwellers differs markedly from that applied to irrigators. These differences are examined from a property‐rights perspective focussing primarily on the institutional hierarchies in the Victorian water sector. The analysis reveals significant attenuation of urban dwellers’ rights, presumably on the basis of the information deficiencies that circumscribe urban water use. Alternative policy options are then proposed, which might alleviate some of these information deficiencies and simultaneously address the efficiency losses that attend the present arrangements.