The National Water Initiative and earlier water reforms have committed Australian governments to redressing environmental degradation caused by excessive extraction from rivers and groundwater systems. To date, the states, territories and commonwealth have identified a range of alternatives for...

The theoretical foundation of water market reforms presumes that such institutions will allow water to be traded from relatively low-value to higher-value uses and simultaneously accomplish many of the economic and environmental objectives ascribed to water resource managers. Numerous ex ante...

Water trade remains a contentious political issue in Australia, regardless of the acknowledged benefits to which economists continually refer. At least two sources of concern arise in discussions about water trade. First, concerns are often expressed about inter-sectoral ramifications. These...

In most urban cities across Australia, water restrictions remain the dominant policy mechanism to restrict urban water consumption. The extensive adoption of water restrictions over several years means that Australian urban water prices have consistently not reflected the opportunity cost of...

The degradation of the natural resource base that derives from unsustainable farm practices is of major concern in Australia. Confronted with mounting evidence of the extent of this degradation, governments have employed a variety of policy instruments to induce change amongst the farming...

The welfare costs of urban water restrictions are now well recognised, even if not yet quantified with precision (see, for example, Edwards 2008). Notwithstanding the costs that attend this form of intervention, governments have proven reluctant to abandon them, at least until additional...

Notwithstanding the neoclassical predilection for markets as a means of allocating scarce resources, it remains the case that state-devised attenuation of behaviour is the norm for many resource allocation decisions. This is particularly apparent in the case of water in urban areas in Australia,...

“There is a water crisis today. But the crisis is not about having too little water to satisfy our needs. It is a crisis of managing water badly – such that billions of people and the environment suffer.” (World Water Vision 2000).The management of water resources is becoming increasingly...

There has been substantial focus on water resource development in India, but with emphasis mainly on the technical side. Development of institutions to manage the interactions and arrangements necessary has received little attention. The study uses the new institutional economics framework and...