This paper proposes a novel mechanism for reallocating temporary water flows or permanent water rights. The All-in-Auction (AiA) increases efficiency and social welfare by reallocating water without harming water rights holders. AiAs can be used to allocate variable or diminished flows among...

In 1966, the irrigation community in Mula (Murcia, Spain) switched from a market (auction), which had been in place in the town for over 700 years, to a system of fixed quotas with a ban on trading, to allocate water from the town's river. We present a model, in which farmers face liquidity...

In 1966, the irrigation community in Mula (Murcia, Spain) switched from a market (auction), which had been in place in the town for over 700 years, to a system of fixed quotas with a ban on trading, to allocate water from the town's river. We present a model, in which farmers face liquidity...

We investigate the efficiency of a market institution (an auction) relative to a non- market institution (a quota) as a water allocation mechanism in the presence of frictions, by exploring a particular historical institutional change in Mula, Spain. We estimate a structural dynamic model under...

How important are windows of opportunity for institutional change? This paper focuses on groundwater-related regulation and assistance in Texas since 1949. Communities adopted a common framework to form local government organizations. These groundwater conservation districts modified the...

This paper analyses the underlying factors affecting people’s satisfaction with drinking water provided by community-based organizations in rural Costa Rica. These organizations provide water to more than 60 percent of the country’s rural population, but there is great disparity in the...

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...

Temporary water transfers, as achievable under option contracts, capture gains from trade that would go unrealized if only permanent transfers of water rights were possible. This paper develops a bilateral option contracting model for water which includes the possibility of conveyance losses and...

This paper incorporates the interdisciplinary New Institutional and Transaction Costs Economics and suggests a holistic framework for analysis of management agro-ecosystem services. That new approach for analyses and assessment of management of agro-ecosystem services includes: definition of the...

Participatory vision-building (PVB) seems promising in fostering collective action to overcome complex social-environmental dilemmas and to attain socially desirable outcomes. By assisting the relevant actors in visualising their desired future and imagining how it would feel to be an active...