Abstract
We compare groundwater use under collective well management in China, where village leaders allocate water among households, and under private well management where farmers either pump from their own wells or buy water from wells owned by other farmers. Villages are divided into connected or isolated groups depending on whether there are lateral groundwater flows between aquifers underlying a village and neighboring ones. In rural China, households under collective well management use less water. Even under collective management, households located in connected villages use more water, indicating that the connectedness of the aquifers may undermine leaders' incentives to conserve water.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 94-116 |
Number of pages | 23 |
Journal | American Journal of Agricultural Economics |
Volume | 95 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 2013 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (70925001, 71161140351) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (2012CB955700, 2010CB428406).
Keywords
- collective well management
- community-based management
- connected village
- isolated village
- private well management