RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Transaction Costs and Institutional Performance in Market-Based Environmental Water Allocation
JF Land Economics
JO Land Econ
FD University of Wisconsin Press
SP 536
OP 560
DO 10.3368/le.88.3.536
VO 88
IS 3
A1 Dustin Garrick
A1 Bruce Aylward
YR 2012
UL http://le.uwpress.org/content/88/3/536.abstract
AB Policy reforms in the Columbia Basin spurred water rights reallocation for ecological recovery. Transaction costs have caused implementation to lag. This paper examines transaction costs and institutional performance in environmental water allocation. It evaluates spatial and temporal performance trends in watershed cases along three dimensions of adaptive efficiency: water recovery, transaction costs, and program budgets. Performance trends demonstrate intrastate variability and volatility over time due to the importance of local institutional capacity, which is uneven within states. Higher levels of water recovery may coincide with moderate to high transaction costs and program budgets, particularly during initial implementation efforts. This finding reflects investments in multilevel policy reform to strengthen enabling conditions and adapt to unintended consequences. (JEL Q25, Q58)