Intertemporal Allocation of Ground Water in the Central Ogallala Formation: An Application of a Multistage Sequential Decision Model

A closed underground water supply whose annual recharge is insignificant relative to its annual withdrawal is a stock resource subject to eventual economic exhaustion. Furthermore, it is a common property resource because its users tap the same reservoir. Economists have expressed their concern over the intertemporal misallocation of such fugitive resources, arising from a possible divergence between social and private costs [5, 6, 7, 8, 9]. While the practical determination of the marginal social cost of a ground water stock at different points in time is a formidable task, economists have suggested methods of evaluating ground water as a stock resource [5,7,9].