In this paper, we model the trade-off between equity and efficiency in a market for a resource when users of that resource are heterogeneous. We develop the analytical model, and show that under certain circumstances efficiency can be achieved in a manner that also reduces inequality. We also...

Agriculture is by far the dominant user of water in the western United States and in nearly all arid regions of the planet. Despite this fact and despite a growing push to rely on price mechanisms for rationalizing water allocation, there are few econometric studies of agricultural water demand...

Many countries have achieved moderate to dramatic growth during the last few decades, and the world-widely continued economic growth results in increased wealth and deteriorated environment. The relationship between economic growth and environmental quality has received great attention in...

The adoption of conservation tillage practices such as ridge till, mulch till, or no-till has been shown to reduce soil erosion. An additional benefit of these conservation practices is that they also increase soil moisture. Therefore, these practices appear to be a method that agricultural...

Government subsidies on electricity used for pumping groundwater by agricultural irrigators has long been suspected to be an important reason for overexploitation of aquifers in Mexico. We hypothesize that institutional arrangements that exacerbate non-excludability of groundwater also matter....

Previous research on water trading has focused on surface water trading and theoretical approaches to analyzing groundwater trading. Empirical analysis of groundwater trading is a new area of study due in part to the previous lack of recorded usage, trade data and binding constraints on...

In Mexico, farmers only pay the cost of electricity used to pump groundwater from wells for groundwater consumption and also receive electricity subsidy from government. It causes the fact that farmers consume groundwater under the situation that private marginal cost is lower than social...

The paper estimates the impacts of risk reducing government programs on the use of conservation practices in agriculture. Specifically, conservation tillage or no-till agriculture can be used to reduce risk from weather shocks while subsidized crop insurance and disaster payments also reduce...

The paper combines panel data techniques with spatial analysis to measure the impact of extreme weather events on the adoption of conservation tillage. Zellner’s SUR technique is extended to spatial panel data to correct for cross-sectional heterogeneity, spatial autocorrelation, and...