IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tin/wpaper/20210011.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Market power in California's water market

Author

Listed:
  • Françeska Tomori

    (Universitat Rovira i Virgili)

  • Erik Ansink

    (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

  • Harold Houba

    (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

  • Nick Hagerty

    (Montana State University)

  • Charles Bos

    (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

Abstract

We estimate market power in California's thin water market. Market frictions may distort the potential welfare gains from water marketing. We use a Nash-Cournot model and derive a closed-form solution for the extent of market power in a typical water market setting. We then use this solution to estimate market power in a newly assembled dataset on California's water economy. We show that, under the assumptions of the Cournot model, market power in this thin market is limited.

Suggested Citation

  • Françeska Tomori & Erik Ansink & Harold Houba & Nick Hagerty & Charles Bos, 2021. "Market power in California's water market," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 21-011/VIII, Tinbergen Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20210011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/21011.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lindh, Thomas, 1992. "The inconsistency of consistent conjectures : Coming back to Cournot," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 69-90, June.
    2. Yukihiko Funaki & Harold Houba & Evgenia Motchenkova, 2020. "Market power in bilateral oligopoly markets with non-expandable infrastructures," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 49(2), pages 525-546, June.
    3. Rowan Isaaks & Bonnie Colby, 2020. "Empirical Application of Rubinstein Bargaining Model in Western U.S. Water Transactions," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(01), pages 1-25, January.
    4. Charles Regnacq & Ariel Dinar & Ellen Hanak, 2016. "The Gravity of Water: Water Trade Frictions in California," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 98(5), pages 1273-1294.
    5. Ansink, Erik & Houba, Harold, 2012. "Market power in water markets," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 237-252.
    6. Carey, Janis & Sunding, David L. & Zilberman, David, 2002. "Transaction costs and trading behavior in an immature water market," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(4), pages 733-750, October.
    7. Ellen M. Bruno & Richard J. Sexton, 2020. "The Gains from Agricultural Groundwater Trade and the Potential for Market Power: Theory and Application," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(3), pages 884-910, May.
    8. Kristiana Hansen & Jonathan Kaplan & Stephan Kroll, 2014. "Valuing Options in Water Markets: A Laboratory Investigation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 57(1), pages 59-80, January.
    9. Hanan G. Jacoby & Rinku Murgai & Saeed Ur Rehman, 2004. "Monopoly Power and Distribution in Fragmented Markets: The Case of Groundwater," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(3), pages 783-808.
    10. Easter, K William & Rosegrant, Mark W & Dinar, Ariel, 1999. "Formal and Informal Markets for Water: Institutions, Performance, and Constraints," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 14(1), pages 99-116, February.
    11. Bryan Leonard & Christopher Costello & Gary D Libecap, 2019. "Expanding Water Markets in the Western United States: Barriers and Lessons from Other Natural Resource Markets," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 13(1), pages 43-61.
    12. Stephen Holland, 2006. "Privatization of Water-Resource Development," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 34(2), pages 291-315, June.
    13. Rosegrant, Mark W. & Binswanger, Hans P., 1994. "Markets in tradable water rights: Potential for efficiency gains in developing country water resource allocation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 22(11), pages 1613-1625, November.
    14. Bresnahan, Timothy F., 1989. "Empirical studies of industries with market power," Handbook of Industrial Organization, in: R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), Handbook of Industrial Organization, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 17, pages 1011-1057, Elsevier.
    15. R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), 1989. "Handbook of Industrial Organization," Handbook of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2.
    16. Chakravorty, Ujjayant & Hochman, Eithan & Umetsu, Chieko & Zilberman, David, 2009. "Water allocation under distribution losses: Comparing alternative institutions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 463-476, February.
    17. R. Schmalensee & R. Willig (ed.), 1989. "Handbook of Industrial Organization," Handbook of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    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. Harold Houba & Françeska Tomori, 2023. "Stackelberg Social Equilibrium in Water Markets," Games, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-9, July.

    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. Tomori, Françeska & Ansink, Erik & Houba, Harold & Hagerty, Nick & Bos, Charles, 2021. "Market power in California’s water market," Working Papers 2072/534854, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    2. Ansink, Erik & Houba, Harold, 2012. "Market power in water markets," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 237-252.
    3. Dae‐Wook Kim & Christopher R. Knittel, 2006. "Biases In Static Oligopoly Models? Evidence From The California Electricity Market," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 451-470, December.
    4. Dae-Wook Kim & Christopher R. Knittel, 2004. "Biases in Static Oligopoly Models? Evidence from the California Electricity Market," NBER Working Papers 10895, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Holloway, Garth J., 1995. "Conjectural Variations With Fewer Apologies," Working Papers 225880, University of California, Davis, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    6. Kaplow, Louis & Shapiro, Carl, 2007. "Antitrust," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 15, pages 1073-1225, Elsevier.
    7. Lukáš Čechura & Tinoush Jamali Jaghdani, 2021. "Market Imperfections within the European Wheat Value Chain: The Case of France and the United Kingdom," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-21, August.
    8. Flora Bellone & Patrick Musso & Lionel Nesta & Frédéric Warzynski, 2009. "L'effet pro-concurrentiel de l'intégration européenne. Une analyse de l'évolution des taux de marge dans les industries manufacturières françaises," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(1), pages 139-163.
    9. Tesfatsion, Leigh, 2001. "Structure, behavior, and market power in an evolutionary labor market with adaptive search," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 25(3-4), pages 419-457, March.
    10. Anthony N. Rezitis & A. Blake Brown & William E. Foster, 1998. "Adjustment costs and dynamic factor demands for U.S. cigarette manufacturing," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 18(3), pages 217-231, May.
    11. Micha Gisser & Raymond Sauer, 2000. "The Aggregate Relation between Profits and Concentration is Consistent with Cournot Behavior," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 16(3), pages 229-246, May.
    12. Gans, Joshua S. & Hill, Robert J., 1997. "Measuring product diversity," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 145-150, August.
    13. Hernán Vallejo, 2007. "A generalized index of market power," Revista de Economía del Rosario, Universidad del Rosario, December.
    14. Steen, Frode & Sorgard, Lars, 1999. "Semicollusion in the Norwegian cement market," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(9), pages 1775-1796, October.
    15. Martin Gaynor, "undated". "What Do We Know About Competition and Quality in Health Care Markets?," GSIA Working Papers 2006-E62, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    16. Valentiny, Pál, 2019. "Közgazdaságtan a jogalkalmazásban [Forensic economics]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(2), pages 134-162.
    17. Céline Bonnet & Pierre Dubois, 2010. "Inference on vertical contracts between manufacturers and retailers allowing for nonlinear pricing and resale price maintenance," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 41(1), pages 139-164, March.
    18. Golan, Amos & Karp, Larry S & Perloff, Jeffrey M, 2000. "Estimating Coke's and Pepsi's Price and Advertising Strategies," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 18(4), pages 398-409, October.
    19. Manthos D. Delis & K. Christos Staikouras & Panagiotis T. Varlagas, 2008. "On the Measurement of Market Power in the Banking Industry," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(7‐8), pages 1023-1047, September.
    20. Asplund, Marcus, 2002. "Risk-averse firms in oligopoly," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(7), pages 995-1012, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Water markets; Market power; California; Cournot-Nash;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • Q25 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Water

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:tin:wpaper:20210011. 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: Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tinbenl.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.