Between 1905 and 1934 over 869 farmers in Owens Valley, California sold their land and associated water rights to Los Angeles, 250 miles to the southwest. This agriculture-to-urban water transfer increased Los Angeles' water supply by over 4 times, making the subsequent dramatic growth of the...

There are both high resource and political costs in defining and enforcing property rights to water and in managing it with markets. In this paper, I examine these issues in the semi-arid U.S. West where many of the intensifying demand and supply problems regarding fresh water are playing out. I...

I examine a complicated bargaining problem in the acquisition of private land and water rights by Los Angeles in Owens Valley. This is a pivotal episode in the political economy of contemporary western water. More broadly, Owens Valley provides empirical evidence on how the gains from exchange...

Between 1905 and 1934 over 869 farmers in Owens Valley, California sold their land and associated water rights to Los Angeles, 250 miles to the southwest. This agriculture-to-urban water transfer increased Los Angeles' water supply by over 4 times, making the subsequent dramatic growth of the...