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PRIVATIZING THE GROUND WATER RESOURCE: INDIVIDUAL USE AND ALTERNATIVE SPECIFICATIONS 1
Author(s) -
Fractor David T.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
jawra journal of the american water resources association
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.957
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1752-1688
pISSN - 1093-474X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1752-1688.1988.tb02999.x
Subject(s) - allocative efficiency , property rights , stock (firearms) , private property , groundwater , common ground , property (philosophy) , common pool resource , common property , environmental economics , business , resource (disambiguation) , natural resource economics , computer science , economics , microeconomics , engineering , market economy , mechanical engineering , computer network , philosophy , geotechnical engineering , communication , epistemology , sociology
While most inquiries into improving the efficiency of ground water allocation have focused upon various schemes involving centralized management, recently the focus has shifted towards exploring private property solutions to these problems. However, most of these studies, when modeling ground water use, have equated behavior under private property to that under common property conditions. This leads to the possibly mistaken conclusion that private property rights do not promote more efficient ground water use, because these models assume that producers ignore the future effects of current pumping. This paper attempts to correct this deficiency by formally modeling ground water use under common property, central management, and private property scenarios. Moreover, there are many ways that property rights can be defined over ground water, some establishing more exclusivity over the resource than others. Four specifications of property rights are analyzed for their likely effects on allocative efficiency: full stock‐flow, partial stock‐flow, limited stock‐flow, and pure flow rights.