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The Syr Darya River Conflict: An Experimental Case Study

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Author Info
KLAUS ABBINK () (School of Economics, University of Nottingham)
MOLLER, Lars Christian () (School of Economics, University of Nottingham)
SARAH O’HARA (School of Geography, University of Nottingham)
Abstract

With the disintegration of the USSR a conflict arose between Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan over the Syr Darya river. Upstream Kyrgyzstan operates the Toktogul reservoir which generates hydropower demanded mainly in winter for heating. Downstream Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan need irrigation water in summer, primarily to grow cotton. Regional agreements obliging Kyrgyzstan to high summer discharges in exchange for fossil fuel transfers in winter have generally been unsuccessful, notably due to lack of trust between the parties. Striving for self-sufficiency in irrigation water, Uzbekistan initiated new reservoir construction. This paper examines their economic impact. We report a laboratory experiment modelling the Syr Darya river scenario as a multi-round three-player trust game with non-binding contracts. Payoff schemes are estimated using real-life data. While basinwide efficiency maximisation requires regional cooperation, our results demonstrate that cooperation in the laboratory is hard to achieve. Uzbek reservoirs improve the likelihood of cooperation only weakly and their positive economic impact is limited to low-water years.

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Paper provided by The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham in its series Discussion Papers with number 2005-14.

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Date of creation: Jul 2005
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Handle: RePEc:cdx:dpaper:2005-14

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Related research
Keywords: Central Asia common-pool resources conflict dams hydropower irrigation experimental economics regional public goods transboundary rivers Syr Darya trust games water

Find related papers by JEL classification:
C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
O53 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East
Q25 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Water

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