Each year, about 2.8 million people die due to problems with poor water supply, sanitation and hygiene. Over three-quarters of the dead are children. Some argue that a human right to clean water would improve this situation. This paper shows that human rights are not sufficient to improve access...

Water scarcity turns into shortage when water supplies are mismatched with user demands. After clarifying the different social and private uses of water, I explain how to use prices to allocate treated (``utility'') water among municipal and industrial users and untreated (``raw'') water among...

Economic theories and tools provide only partial insight into the many complexities affecting various uses and flows of water. To usefully teach water economics, it is therefore necessary to understand and cooperate with other disciplines. Many economic concepts can be used to understand...

Dutch drinking water companies now deliver safe affordable water to the entire population, but this result was not planned. It emerged, rather, from an evolutionary process in which various pressures on the commons resulted in changes to drinking water systems that addressed old concerns but...

Managers of public water companies present themselves and are seen as public servants maximizing public welfare. Because water is rarely allocated through market mechanisms, this maximization requires that managers cooperate in a bureaucratic version of a social dilemma. Members of the...