期刊名称：Discussion Paper Series / Department of Economics, Monash University
出版年度：2010
卷号：1
出版社：Monash University
摘要：The adoption of a hybrid approach to water rights known as the California doctrine in
some western states of the United States (US) and Australia creates some doubt as to
what factors drive scarcity and the evolution of property rights to water. In previous
studies commentators have argued that climate is the only variable that drives water
scarcity. This can explain why private rights (prior appropriation) were adopted in
western states of the US during the nineteenth century. However, it cannot explain why
the hybrid approach where common and private rights co-existed in nine of seventeen
arid US states and two Australian colonies persisted. This paper shows that in addition to
climate, the dominant type of asset investment impacts water scarcity via the mobility
constraint. Asset investment can be deployable or non-deployable. When deployable
assets dominate the mobility constraint is close to zero and not binding thereby reducing
water scarcity because alternative production locations are available. Conversely when
non-deployable assets dominate the mobility constraint is close to one and binding so that
assets are unable to be moved to alternative production locations. We present a
framework that combines climate and asset type in order to determine the net effects on
water scarcity in order to predict when and where common and/or private water rights
will evolve. Empirical evidence from several countries is used to verify the frameworks
predicative capacity. The findings show the combination of these two variables is better
able to explain the emergence and persistence of the hybrid California doctrine as well as
the adoption of ‘pure’ private rights (the Colorado doctrine) in eight of seventeen US
states than if we rely on climate alone.
