Groundwater is a vital yet threatened resource in much of South Asia. This paper develops a model of groundwater transactions under payoff uncertainty arising from unpredictable fluctuations in groundwater availability during the agricultural dry season. The model highlights the trade-off between th...

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Bibliographische Detailangaben

1. Verfasser:	Gine, Xavier (VerfasserIn)
Format:	Elektronisch E-Book
Sprache:	English
Veröffentlicht:	Washington, D.C The World Bank 2016
Schriftenreihe:	World Bank E-Library Archive
Online-Zugang:	Volltext
Zusammenfassung:	Groundwater is a vital yet threatened resource in much of South Asia. This paper develops a model of groundwater transactions under payoff uncertainty arising from unpredictable fluctuations in groundwater availability during the agricultural dry season. The model highlights the trade-off between the ex post inefficiency of long-term contracts and the ex ante inefficiency of spot contracts. The structural parameters are estimated using detailed micro-data on the area irrigated under each contract type combined with subjective probability distributions of borewell discharge elicited from a large sample of well-owners in southern India. The findings show that, while the contracting distortion leads to an average welfare loss of less than 2 percent and accounts for less than 50 percent of all transactions costs in groundwater markets, it has a sizeable impact on irrigated area, especially for small farmers. Uncertainty coupled with land fragmentation also attenuates the benefits of the water-saving technologies now being heavily promoted in India
Beschreibung:	1 Online-Ressource (50 p)
DOI:	10.1596/1813-9450-7694