We assess the efficiency of urban water supply in 27 Indian cities using data envelopment analysis (DEA). We also group cities by the management structure of their water utilities. Utilities with greater degree of functional autonomy perform better, supporting the hypothesis that more autonomy...

Political and economic reforms in India have made private sector participation (PSP) in urban water delivery a viable strategy for state and city policy, against the expectations of many scholars. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the development of temporal, geographic and...

The Kyoto Protocol allows international emissions trading, which could take place in three different forms: government, permit, or credit trading. Which trading system is chosen is likely to depend on the preferences of several interest groups. In this paper, we give empirical evidence on the...

Environmental policies typically combine the identification of a goal with some means to achieve that goal. This chapter focuses exclusively on the second component, the means – the “instruments” – of environmental policy, and considers, in particular, experience around the world with...

Water is an increasingly scarce resource. It is often distributed such that consumers do not face any marginal cost of consumption, creating a common pool problem. For instance, tenants in multi-family buildings can often consume both hot and cold water at zero marginal cost. Using...

Economic studies have argued that transaction costs and third-party impact of water transfers can reduce the potential of water markets in allocating water efficiently across users. The main objective of this study is to design and empirically simulate a market structure, which can overcome the...

Billions of dollars will be spent globally to upgrade water infrastructure in the coming years. The standard economic prescription is privatization and the introduction of water markets. A major lesson from the recent privatization debacle in electricity is that prescriptions for reform must...