This paper discusses a framework for analyzing robust institutions for water markets drawn on the new institutional economics school of thoughts which is based on Williamson, North, Coase and Ostrom theories on transaction cost economics, property rights and collective actions. Based on these...

The current Water Abstraction License (WAL) regime in Italy is no longer flexible enough to cope with the challenges posed by human-induced climate and global environmental changes. The cornerstones of the current regime were laid down in the 1930s and have remained essentially unchanged ever...

Urban water and wastewater management are relatively under-studied subjects in India. The Indian urban space has been understood in an undifferentiated manner, which ignores the specificities deriving from the stage of urban development, the sources of water, as also the diverse nature of...

The simultaneous achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) is, to say the least, challenging. In a situation of increasing and multiple demands over limited resources, pursuing each goal separately could lead to increased competition. The situation in Africa is particularly...

We analyze the optimal investment strategy of a monopolist which has subscribed a concession contract to provide a public utility, i.e. water service. We present a strategic model in which a monopolist chooses both the timing of the investment and the capacity. We focus not only on the value of...

Are initial competitive advantages self-reinforcing, so that markets exhibit an endogenous tendency to be dominated by only a few firms? Although this question is of great economic importance, no systematic empirical study has yet addressed it. Therefore, we examine experimentally whether firms...