This paper explores the likely impact of emissions trading design on transaction costs. Transaction costs include both the costs for the private sector to comply with the scheme rules and the costs of scheme administration. In economic theory transaction costs are often assumed to be zero. But...

The dynamics of a population and a resource are investigated in a maximin model based on Brander and Taylor’s stylization of Easter Island, in order to consider the sustainability of the society represented. There are continua of both regular and non-regular maximin solutions, the type...

A rising saline aquifer in the Coleambally Irrigation Area constitutes a common pool resource, characterised by costly exclusion and rival utilisation for regional irrigators. The approach outlined in general terms in this paper is the application of formal, empirical techniques to guide the...

Questions relating to the allocation and management of risk have played a central role in the development of the National Water Initiative, particularly as it has applied to the Murray- Darling Basin. The central issues of efficiency and equity in allocations are best understood by considering...

Marine protected areas have been advocated as a useful tool in fisheries management. However, as protected areas they are a ‘blunt’ tool to manage fishery operations; in the sense that they do not alter the incentives of individual fishers, the outcomes from protected area creation are...

As Australia begins to implement the National Water Initiative, there are lessons to be learned from past experience in rural adjustment and rural assistance schemes. The experience is rich and the messages powerful. Government intervention in the process of adjustment and change can impede,...

In the past decade, market based instruments (MBIs) have become more frequently applied for natural resource and environmental management purposes. MBIs comprise a range of instruments used to provide economic incentives/disincentives (e.g. by altering market prices, setting a cap or altering...

Over-allocation of irrigation water has led to widespread environmental degradation in the Murray-Darling Basin, prompting discussions of the water efficiency performance of irrigated industries, particularly cotton. There is increasing pressure for irrigators to adopt water efficient practices...

Water is increasingly being treated as a tradable commodity. This paper describes our efforts to include water accounts in a multi-regional CGE model. In order to understand the conditions under which water trade might occur, we need to add a number of features to the model and scenarios. These...

This paper reports on an analysis of irrigator water demand and profit changes across varying annual water availability, crop water requirements, and river salinity conditions for irrigation along the South Australian portion of the Lower Murray. The paper also investigates the validity of the...