2002 World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists

This paper examines the idea of efficient and equitable policy design for groundwater and compares that ideal to changing groundwater institutions in the U. S. and Europe. The paper begins by exploring the economic reasons behind the growth in groundwater use, and the policy challenge of addressing new resource realities. An applied welfare economics framework is used to define the key policy challenges in terms of establishing limits to access where warranted, grandfathering established resource rights, reasonable transferability, and factoring externalities into opportunity cost pricing. Case studies are examined in order to observe both successes and failure in groundwater management and trends in innovation. Important lessons are drawn about the requirements for establishing an effective cap on use, key elements of successful grandfathering and the prospects for externality premiums. Addressing both efficiency and equity concerns call for a policy balance that allows private resourcefulness within broad and reasonable public guidelines.



	Paper Title:	Designing Groundwater Policy: Efficiency, Equity And International Case Studies
	Presenting Author:	Marie Leigh Livingston (University of Northern Colorado)
	Coauthor 1:	Alberto Garrido
	Coauthor 2:
	Coauthor 3:
	Abstract:	This paper examines the idea of efficient and equitable policy design for groundwater and compares that ideal to changing groundwater institutions in the U. S. and Europe. The paper begins by exploring the economic reasons behind the growth in groundwater use, and the policy challenge of addressing new resource realities. An applied welfare economics framework is used to define the key policy challenges in terms of establishing limits to access where warranted, grandfathering established resource rights, reasonable transferability, and factoring externalities into opportunity cost pricing. Case studies are examined in order to observe both successes and failure in groundwater management and trends in innovation. Important lessons are drawn about the requirements for establishing an effective cap on use, key elements of successful grandfathering and the prospects for externality premiums. Addressing both efficiency and equity concerns call for a policy balance that allows private resourcefulness within broad and reasonable public guidelines.
	Link to paper:	Not available

	Session / Day / Time	10I / Wednesday / 10:15 - 11:45 am

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