IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fae/wpaper/2016.05.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Groundwater Overdraft, Electricity, and Wrong Incentives: Evidence from Mexico

Author

Listed:
  • Vicente Ruiz

    (Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne, University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Abstract

Groundwater overdraft is threatening the sustainability of an increasing number of aquifers in Mexico. The excessive amount of groundwater extracted by farming activities relying on irrigation methods have significantly contributed to this problem. The objective of this paper is to analyse the effect of changes in groundwater's price over the allocation of different production inputs from a structural approach. Using a combination of multiple micro-data sources, I model the technology of producers facing groundwater overdraft through a Translog cost function. The results following this analysis show that groundwater's own price elasticity for the sample analysed is -0.54. Moreover, these results also show that both labour and fertiliser can act as substitutes for groundwater, further reacting to changes in groundwater's price.

Suggested Citation

  • Vicente Ruiz, 2016. "Groundwater Overdraft, Electricity, and Wrong Incentives: Evidence from Mexico," Working Papers 2016.05, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
    • Handle: RePEc:fae:wpaper:2016.05
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://faere.fr/pub/WorkingPapers/Ruiz_FAERE_WP2016_05.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2016
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael R. Moore & Ariel Dinar, 1995. "Water and Land as Quantity-Rationed Inputs in California Agriculture: Empirical Tests and Water Policy Implications," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 71(4), pages 445-461.
    2. Timothy J. Dalton & William A. Masters & Kenneth A. Foster, 1997. "Production costs and input substitution in Zimbabwe's smallholder agriculture," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 17(2-3), pages 201-209, December.
    3. David Zilberman & Doug Parker, 1996. "Explaining Irrigation Technology Choices: A Microparameter Approach," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 78(4), pages 1064-1072.
    4. Pattanayak, Subhrendu K. & Kramer, Randall A., 2001. "Worth of watersheds: a producer surplus approach for valuing drought mitigation in Eastern Indonesia," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 123-146, February.
    5. Schoengold, Karina & Zilberman, David, 2007. "The Economics of Water, Irrigation, and Development," Handbook of Agricultural Economics, in: Robert Evenson & Prabhu Pingali (ed.), Handbook of Agricultural Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 58, pages 2933-2977, Elsevier.
    6. Phoebe Koundouri, 2004. "Current Issues in the Economics of Groundwater Resource Management," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(5), pages 703-740, December.
    7. Anderson, Richard G & Thursby, Jerry G, 1986. "Confidence Intervals for Elasticity Estimators in Translog Models," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 68(4), pages 647-656, November.
    8. Moore, Michael R. & Gollehon, Noel R. & Carey, Marc B., 1994. "Alternative models of input allocation in multicrop systems: irrigation water in the central plains, United States," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 11(2-3), pages 143-158, December.
    9. Chambers,Robert G., 1988. "Applied Production Analysis," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521314275.
    10. Bell, Rosalyn & Gali, Jyothi & Gretton, Paul & Redmond, Ineke, 2007. "The responsiveness of Australian farm performance to changes in irrigation water use and trade," 2007 Conference (51st), February 13-16, 2007, Queenstown, New Zealand 9454, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    11. Moore, Michael R. & Negri, Donald H., 1992. "A Multicrop Production Model Of Irrigated Agriculture, Applied To Water Allocation Policy Of The Bureau Of Reclamation," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 17(1), pages 1-15, July.
    12. Krinsky, Itzhak & Robb, A Leslie, 1991. "Three Methods for Calculating the Statistical Properties of Elasticities: A Comparison," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 199-209.
    13. Nieswiadomy, Michael L., 1988. "Input Substitution In Irrigated Agriculture In The High Plains Of Texas, 1970-80," Western Journal of Agricultural Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 13(1), pages 1-8, July.
    14. Margriet Caswell & David Zilberman, 1985. "The Choices of Irrigation Technologies in California," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 67(2), pages 224-234.
    15. Alberto Behar, 2004. "Estimates of labour demand elasticities and elasticities of substitution using firm-level manufacturing data," SALDRU/CSSR Working Papers 098, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    16. Kumar, M. Dinesh, 2005. "Impact of electricity prices and volumetric water allocation on energy and groundwater demand management:: analysis from Western India," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 39-51, January.
    17. Eakin, B Kelly & McMillen, Daniel P & Buono, Mark J, 1990. "Constructing Confidence Intervals Using the Bootstrap: An Application to a Multi-Product Cost Function," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(2), pages 339-344, May.
    18. Keith R. McLaren & Xueyan Zhao, 2009. "The Econometric Specification of Input Demand Systems Implied by Cost Function Representations," Monash Econometrics and Business Statistics Working Papers 3/09, Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics.
    19. Michael R. Moore & Noel R. Gollehon & Marc B. Carey, 1994. "Multicrop Production Decisions in Western Irrigated Agriculture: The Role of Water Price," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 76(4), pages 859-874.
    20. Fuss, Melvyn A., 1977. "The demand for energy in Canadian manufacturing : An example of the estimation of production structures with many inputs," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 89-116, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Schuck, Eric C. & Green, Gareth P. & Sunding, David L., 2000. "Irrigation Water Rate Reform And Endogenous Technological Change," 2000 Annual Meeting, June 29-July 1, 2000, Vancouver, British Columbia 36463, Western Agricultural Economics Association.
    2. Phoebe Koundouri, 2004. "Current Issues in the Economics of Groundwater Resource Management," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(5), pages 703-740, December.
    3. Ben Groom & Phoebe Koundouri & Celine Nauges & Alban Thomas, 2003. "Irrigation water management under risk: An application to Cyprus," DEOS Working Papers 0306, Athens University of Economics and Business.
    4. Kampas, Athanasios & Petsakos, Athanasios & Rozakis, Stelios, 2012. "Price induced irrigation water saving: Unraveling conflicts and synergies between European agricultural and water policies for a Greek Water District," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 28-38.
    5. Xie, Yang & Zilberman, David, 2015. "Water Storage Capacities versus Water Use Efficiency: Substitutes or Complements?," 2015 AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, July 26-28, San Francisco, California 205439, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    6. Schuck, Eric C. & Green, Gareth P., 2002. "Farm Level Irrigation Technology Decisions Over Time," 2002 Annual meeting, July 28-31, Long Beach, CA 19632, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    7. Green, Gareth P. & Sunding, David L., 1997. "Land Allocation, Soil Quality, And The Demand For Irrigation Technology," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 22(2), pages 1-9, December.
    8. Olen, Beau & Wu, JunJie & Langpap, Christian, 2012. "Crop-specific Irrigation Choices for Major Crops on the West Coast: Water Scarcity and Climatic Determinants," 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington 124843, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    9. Celine Nauges & Phoebe Koundouri & Vangelis Tzouvelekas, 2004. "Endogenous Technology Adoption Under Production Risk: Theory and Application to Irrigation Technology," Working Papers 0411, University of Crete, Department of Economics.
    10. Mullen, Jeffrey D. & Yu, Yingzhuo & Hoogenboom, Gerrit, 2009. "Estimating the demand for irrigation water in a humid climate: A case study from the southeastern United States," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 96(10), pages 1421-1428, October.
    11. Moreno, Georgina & Sunding, David L., 2003. "Simultaneous Estimation Of Technology Adoption And Land Allocation," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 22134, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    12. Lars Gårn Hansen & Carsten Lynge Jensen, 2014. "Jointness through vessel capacity input in a multispecies fishery," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 45(6), pages 745-756, November.
    13. Christine Heumesser & Sabine Fuss & Jana Szolgayová & Franziska Strauss & Erwin Schmid, 2012. "Investment in Irrigation Systems under Precipitation Uncertainty," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(11), pages 3113-3137, September.
    14. Pfeiffer, Lisa & Lin, Cynthia, 2013. "The Effects of Energy Prices on Groundwater Extraction in Agriculture in the High Plains Aquifer," 2014 Allied Social Sciences Association (ASSA) Annual Meeting, January 3-5, 2014, Philadelphia, PA 161890, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    15. CARPENTIER, Alain & GOHIN, Alexandre & SCKOKAI, Paolo & THOMAS, Alban, 2015. "Economic modelling of agricultural production: past advances and new challenges," Review of Agricultural and Environmental Studies - Revue d'Etudes en Agriculture et Environnement (RAEStud), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), vol. 96(1), March.
    16. Sarah Wheeler & Henning Bjornlund & Martin Shanahan & Alec Zuo, 2008. "Price elasticity of water allocations demand in the Goulburn-Murray Irrigation District ," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 52(1), pages 37-55, March.
    17. Carpentier, Alain & Letort, Elodie, 2009. "Modeling acreage decisions within the multinomial Logit framework," Working Papers 211011, Institut National de la recherche Agronomique (INRA), Departement Sciences Sociales, Agriculture et Alimentation, Espace et Environnement (SAE2).
    18. Julia Frutos Cachorro & Katrin Erdlenbruch & Mabel Tidball, 2019. "Sharing a Groundwater Resource in a Context of Regime Shifts," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 72(4), pages 913-940, April.
    19. Hyunseok Kim & GianCarlo Moschini, 2018. "The Dynamics of Supply: U.S. Corn and Soybeans in the Biofuel Era," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 94(4), pages 593-613.
    20. Alberto Behar, 2005. "Does training benefit those who do not get any? Elasticities of complementarity and factor price in South Africa," Economics Series Working Papers 244, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Groundwater; Electricity; Subsidies; Mexico; Translog Cost;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q12 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Micro Analysis of Farm Firms, Farm Households, and Farm Input Markets
    • Q25 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Water

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:fae:wpaper:2016.05. 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: Dorothée Charlier (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/faereea.html .

    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.