Environmental determinants of cost sharing an application to irrigation

Multiple-cost sharing rules often coexist in seemingly identical environments. We use shared irrigation costs as a context for examining the extent to which the structural environment explains the selection of a cost sharing rule. We find that environmental factors that?induce greater dependence on the cooperation of others, influence majority interests, create difficulties for interpersonal utility comparisons, or impact notions of “fairness”?all have impressive explanatory power. These results present the first formal empirical analysis of the manner in which structural features influence the actual ost-sharing choices of economic agents.