IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v105y2014icp124-129.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Inequality and rules in the governance of water resources

Author

Listed:
  • Marchiori, Carmen

Abstract

This paper considers two types of farmer, with unequal land endowments, who voluntarily contribute to a joint project for the maintenance of an irrigation network. The collective output (water) is distributed according to some allocation rule and used by each farmer in combination with land to produce a final good. The analysis shows that the initial degree of inequality affects the allocation rule that maximises the amount of water collectively provided. Specifically, two forces act in opposite directions. The first ‘effort-augmenting’ force pushes the distribution of water towards the agent with the higher return to water in the attempt to maximise the aggregate level of effort. This is the prominent force when efforts are highly substitute. If efforts display some degree of complementarity, the effort mix, alongside with aggregate effort, becomes important. A second ‘effort-mix’ force then emerges, that favours more egalitarian or even progressive water allocation rules.

Suggested Citation

  • Marchiori, Carmen, 2014. "Inequality and rules in the governance of water resources," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 124-129.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:105:y:2014:i:c:p:124-129
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.04.021
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092180091400130X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.04.021?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Varughese, George & Ostrom, Elinor, 2001. "The Contested Role of Heterogeneity in Collective Action: Some Evidence from Community Forestry in Nepal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 747-765, May.
    2. Carmen Marchiori & Susan Sayre & Leo Simon, 2012. "Bargaining and Devolution in the Upper Guadiana Basin," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 51(3), pages 453-470, March.
    3. Sethi, Rajiv & Somanathan, E., 2003. "Understanding reciprocity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 1-27, January.
    4. Cherry, Todd L. & Kroll, Stephan & Shogren, Jason F., 2005. "The impact of endowment heterogeneity and origin on public good contributions: evidence from the lab," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 357-365, July.
    5. Bhim Adhikari & Salvatore Di Falco, 2009. "Social Inequality, Local Leadership and Collective Action: An Empirical Study of Forest Commons," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 21(2), pages 179-194, April.
    6. Nugent, Jeffrey B. & Sanchez, Nicholas, 1999. "The local variability of rainfall and tribal institutions: the case of Sudan," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 263-291, July.
    7. Bergstrom, Theodore & Blume, Lawrence & Varian, Hal, 1986. "On the private provision of public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 25-49, February.
    8. Alix-Garcia, Jennifer, 2007. "A spatial analysis of common property deforestation," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 141-157, March.
    9. Debraj Ray & Jean-Marie Baland & Olivier Dagnelie, 2007. "Inequality and Inefficiency in Joint Projects," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(522), pages 922-935, July.
    10. Bardhan, Pranab & Ghatak, Maitreesh & Karaivanov, Alexander, 2007. "Wealth inequality and collective action," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(9), pages 1843-1874, September.
    11. Kenneth S. Chan & Stuart Mestelman & Rob Moir & R. Andrew Muller Moir, 1996. "The Voluntary Provision of Public Goods under Varying Income Distributions," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 29(1), pages 54-69, February.
    12. Khwaja, Asim Ijaz, 2001. "Can Good Projects Succeed in Bad Communities? Collective Action in the Himalayas," Working Paper Series rwp01-043, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    13. Jeff Dayton-Johnson & Pranab Bardhan, 2002. "Inequality And Conservation On The Local Commons: A Theoretical Exercise," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(481), pages 577-602, July.
    14. Adhikari, Bhim & Di Falco, Salvatore & Lovett, Jon C., 2004. "Household characteristics and forest dependency: evidence from common property forest management in Nepal," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 245-257, February.
    15. Joëlle Noailly & Cees Withagen & Jeroen Bergh, 2007. "Spatial Evolution of Social Norms in a Common-Pool Resource Game," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 36(1), pages 113-141, January.
    16. Trawick, Paul, 2003. "Against the Privatization of Water: An Indigenous Model for Improving Existing Laws and Successfully Governing the Commons," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 977-996, June.
    17. Bicchieri,Cristina, 2006. "The Grammar of Society," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521574907, January.
    18. Baland, Jean-Marie & Platteau, Jean-Philippe, 1998. "Wealth Inequality and Efficiency in the Commons, Part II: The Regulated Case," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(1), pages 1-22, January.
    19. Dayton-Johnson, Jeff, 2000. "Choosing rules to govern the commons: a model with evidence from Mexico," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 19-41, May.
    20. Juan-Camilo Cardenas, 2002. "Real wealth and experimental cooperation: Evidence from field experiments," Artefactual Field Experiments 00019, The Field Experiments Website.
    21. Sethi, Rajiv & Somanathan, E, 1996. "The Evolution of Social Norms in Common Property Resource Use," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(4), pages 766-788, September.
    22. Bardhan, Pranab, 2000. "Irrigation and Cooperation: An Empirical Analysis of 48 Irrigation Communities in South India," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(4), pages 847-865, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Matteo Zavalloni & Meri Raggi & Davide Viaggi, 2016. "Assessing Collective Measures in Rural Policy: The Effect of Minimum Participation Rules on the Distribution of Benefits from Irrigation Infrastructure," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-19, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cardenas, Juan-Camilo, 2003. "Real wealth and experimental cooperation: experiments in the field lab," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 263-289, April.
    2. Nicolas Faysse, 2005. "Coping With The Tragedy Of The Commons: Game Structure And Design Of Rules," Post-Print cirad-01002167, HAL.
    3. Juan-Camilo Cardenas, 2002. "Real wealth and experimental cooperation: Evidence from field experiments," Artefactual Field Experiments 00019, The Field Experiments Website.
    4. Jeff Dayton-Johnson & Pranab Bardhan, 2002. "Inequality And Conservation On The Local Commons: A Theoretical Exercise," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(481), pages 577-602, July.
    5. Naidu, Sirisha C., 2009. "Heterogeneity and Collective Management: Evidence from Common Forests in Himachal Pradesh, India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 676-686, March.
    6. Gary D. Libecap, 2014. "Addressing Global Environmental Externalities: Transaction Costs Considerations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(2), pages 424-479, June.
    7. Nicolas Faysse, 2005. "Coping with the Tragedy of the Commons: Game Structure and Design of Rules," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 239-261, April.
    8. Baland, Jean-Marie & Platteau, Jean-Philippe, 2003. "Economics of common property management regimes," Handbook of Environmental Economics, in: K. G. Mäler & J. R. Vincent (ed.), Handbook of Environmental Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 127-190, Elsevier.
    9. Ghazala Mansuri, 2004. "Community-Based and -Driven Development: A Critical Review," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 19(1), pages 1-39.
    10. Tarui, Nori, 2007. "Inequality and outside options in common-property resource use," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 214-239, May.
    11. Markussen, Thomas & Sharma, Smriti & Singhal, Saurabh & Tarp, Finn, 2021. "Inequality, institutions and cooperation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    12. Sergio Currarini & Carmen Marchiori & Alessandro Tavoni, 2016. "Network Economics and the Environment: Insights and Perspectives," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 65(1), pages 159-189, September.
    13. Nancy McCarthy & Talip Kilic, 2015. "The nexus between gender, collective action for public goods and agriculture: evidence from Malawi," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 46(3), pages 375-402, May.
    14. Alberto Alesina & Eliana La Ferrara, 2003. "Ethnic Diversity and Economic Performance," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2028, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    15. Alix-Garcia, Jennifer, 2008. "An exploration of the positive effect of inequality on common property forests," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 92-105, August.
    16. Martin Gregor, 2011. "Tradeoffs of foreign assistance for the weakest-link global public goods," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(2), pages 233-251, April.
    17. Ansink, Erik & Bouma, Jetske, 2013. "Effective support for community resource management," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 94-103.
    18. Bardhan, Pranab & Ghatak, Maitreesh & Karaivanov, Alexander, 2007. "Wealth inequality and collective action," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(9), pages 1843-1874, September.
    19. Fijnanda van Klingeren, 2020. "Playing nice in the sandbox: On the role of heterogeneity, trust and cooperation in common-pool resources," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(8), pages 1-36, August.
    20. Olivier Dagnelie, 2008. "Inequality and a Repeated Joint Project," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 740.08, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:105:y:2014:i:c:p:124-129. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.