Survey data from 10 OECD countries are used to model household water demand. Statistically significant results include: (1) an inelastic average price response is estimated for every country; (2) households not charged volumetrically consume more water than households that are; (3) household...

Using information on a basic or “lifeline” level of domestic water use obtained from a Stone-Geary water demand function and estimated at around 128m3 per household per year, we calculate water affordability indexes relating the cost of such lifeline to average municipal income levels in a...

The paper provides an integrated framework to assess water markets in terms of their institutional underpinnings and the three ‘pillars’ of integrated water resource management: economic efficiency, equity and environmental sustainability. This framework can be used: (1) to benchmark...

A key issue facing water planners and policy makers is the cost of reallocating water from extractive uses, such as irrigated agriculture, to environmental flows. To quantify these costs, a framework to analyze the economic trade-offs from water use reductions in irrigated agriculture is...

Using information on a basic or “lifeline” level of domestic water use obtained from a Stone-Geary water demand function and estimated at around 128m3 per household per year, we calculate water affordability indexes relating the cost of such lifeline to average municipal income levels in a...

This previously unpublished study was undertaken in 2006/7 with funding support provided by Land and Water Australia. (Its working title was ‘The Sustainability of Sustainable Limits to Extractions – informing the National Water Initiative’). The focus of the paper is on the debate about...

This report describes the first stage of a project that is comparing water governance in southern Australia, South Africa, south-west USA and Spain. The river systems examined are subject to highly variable climates and have a long history of drought management. Underlying assumptions are that...

Extraction from a common pool resource may result in a divergence between competitive and optimal rates of extraction. This paper develops a theoretical model to estimate the size of the payoffs from this divergence under alternative spatial representations. Results show that when a resource is...