IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v101y2011i1p49-63.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reflections on "Some Unsettled Problems of Irrigation"

Author

Listed:
  • Elinor Ostrom

Abstract

It is instructive to read the article that Katharine Coman published in the first issue of the American Economic Review to gain insight into the problems of collective action related to irrigation in the American West. One gains further understanding of the problems Coman identifies by using a social-ecological system (Ostrom 2007, 2009) to organize the diverse variables identified by Coman. One gains a general lesson from this analysis that changing the formal governance structure of irrigation is not sufficient to ensure efficient investment in facilities or that farmers are able to acquire property and make a reasonable living. Building knowledge and trust are, however, essential for solving collective-action problems. (JEL B31, N51, Q15, Q25)

Suggested Citation

  • Elinor Ostrom, 2011. "Reflections on "Some Unsettled Problems of Irrigation"," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 49-63, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:101:y:2011:i:1:p:49-63
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.101.1.49
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Isaac, R Mark & Walker, James M, 1988. "Communication and Free-Riding Behavior: The Voluntary Contribution Mechanism," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(4), pages 585-608, October.
    2. Frey, Bruno S, 1997. "A Constitution for Knaves Crowds Out Civic Virtues," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(443), pages 1043-1053, July.
    3. Ransom A. Myers & Boris Worm, 2003. "Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities," Nature, Nature, vol. 423(6937), pages 280-283, May.
    4. Bruno S. Frey, 1994. "How Intrinsic Motivation is Crowded out and in," Rationality and Society, , vol. 6(3), pages 334-352, July.
    5. Elinor Ostrom, 2010. "Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 641-672, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Qinghua Wu & Xiaoliang Guan & Jun Zhang & Yang Xu, 2019. "The Role of Rural Infrastructure in Reducing Production Costs and Promoting Resource-Conserving Agriculture," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(18), pages 1-13, September.
    2. Talbot-Jones, Julia & Bennett, Jeff, 2019. "Toward a property rights theory of legal rights for rivers," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 1-1.
    3. Cardenas, J. C. & Jaramillo, F & León, D & López, M. & Rodríguez, M & Zuleta, H, 2021. "With a little help from my friends: Debt Renegotiation and Climate Change," Documentos de Trabajo 19732, Universidad del Rosario.
    4. Robert N. Stavins, 2011. "The Problem of the Commons: Still Unsettled after 100 Years," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 81-108, February.
    5. Benno Torgler & Marco Piatti, 2011. "A Century of American Economic Review," Working Papers 2011.27, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    6. Aoyagi, Keitaro & Sawada, Yasuyuki & Shoji, Masahiro, 2014. "Does Infrastructure Facilitate Social Capital Accumulation? Evidence from Natural and Artefactual Field Experiments in a Developing Country," Working Papers 65, JICA Research Institute.
    7. Reena Badiani-Magnusson & Katrina Jessoe, 2018. "Electricity Prices, Groundwater, and Agriculture: The Environmental and Agricultural Impacts of Electricity Subsidies in India," NBER Chapters, in: Agricultural Productivity and Producer Behavior, pages 157-183, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Sawada, Yasuyuki, 2015. "The Impacts of Infrastructure in Development: A Selective Survey," ADBI Working Papers 511, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    9. Marianne Lefebvre, 2011. "Sharing Rules for Common-Pool Resources when Self-insurance is Available: an Experiment," Working Papers 11-22, LAMETA, Universtiy of Montpellier, revised Jun 2012.
    10. Debaere, Peter & Li, Tianshu, 2017. "The Effects of Water Markets: Evidence from the Rio Grande," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 259187, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    11. Hanemann, Michael, 2014. "Property rights and sustainable irrigation—A developed world perspective," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 5-22.
    12. Suhardiman, Diana & Karki, Emma, 2019. "Spatial politics and local alliances shaping Nepal hydropower," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 525-536.
    13. Richard Hornbeck & Pinar Keskin, 2011. "The Evolving Impact of the Ogallala Aquifer: Agricultural Adaptation to Groundwater and Climate," NBER Working Papers 17625, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Skurray, James H., 2015. "The scope for collective action in a large groundwater basin: An institutional analysis of aquifer governance in Western Australia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 128-140.
    15. Caleb M. Koch & Heinrich H. Nax, 2022. "Groundwater Usage and Strategic Complements: Part I (Instrumental Variables)," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-19, October.
    16. Muradian, Roldan & Rival, Laura, 2012. "Between markets and hierarchies: The challenge of governing ecosystem services," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 93-100.
    17. Zaikin, Andrey & Espinola-Arredondo, Ana, 2012. "The Carrot or the Stick: Water Allocation Strategies for Uzbekistan," 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington 124680, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    18. Yi Zhou, 2016. "The Tragedy of the Anticommons in Knowledge," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 48(1), pages 158-175, March.
    19. Skurray, James H., 2013. "The scope for collective action in a large groundwater basin: an institutional analysis of aquifer governance in Western Australia," Working Papers 161075, University of Western Australia, School of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Holden, Stein T. & Tilahun, Mesfin, 2019. "How Do Social Preferences and Norms of Reciprocity affect Generalized and Particularized Trust?," CLTS Working Papers 8/19, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Centre for Land Tenure Studies, revised 10 Oct 2019.
    2. Stein T Holden & Mesfin Tilahun, 2021. "Preferences, trust, and performance in youth business groups," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(9), pages 1-28, September.
    3. Jeffrey Wagner, 2007. "Plato's Republic and liberal economic education for the twenty-first century," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 1(2), pages 1-10.
    4. Bowles, Samuel & Hwang, Sung-Ha, 2008. "Social preferences and public economics: Mechanism design when social preferences depend on incentives," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(8-9), pages 1811-1820, August.
    5. Jean-Michel Josselin & Alain Marciano, 2002. "The Making of the French Civil Code: An Economic Interpretation," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 193-203, November.
    6. Dold, Malte & Lewis, Paul, 2022. "F.A. Hayek on the political economy of endogenous preferences: An historical overview and contemporary assessment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 196(C), pages 104-119.
    7. Ahn, T.K. & Loukas, Balafoutas & Batsaikhan, Mongoljin & Campos-Ortiz, Francisco & Putterman, Louis & Sutter, Matthias, 2018. "Trust and communication in a property rights dilemma," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 413-433.
    8. Claudia Keser & Andreas Markstädter & Martin Schmidt, 2014. "Mandatory minimum contributions, heterogeneous endowments and voluntary public-good provision," CIRANO Working Papers 2014s-47, CIRANO.
    9. Keser, Claudia & Markstädter, Andreas & Schmidt, Martin, 2014. "Mandatory minimum contributions, heterogenous endowments and voluntary public-good provision," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 224, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    10. R. Isaac & Douglas Norton, 2013. "Endogenous institutions and the possibility of reverse crowding out," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(1), pages 253-284, July.
    11. Sverre Grepperud & Pål Andreas Pedersen, 2001. "The Crowding-out of Work Ethics," Studies in Economics 0102, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    12. Chakraborti, Rik & Maloney, Matt & Roberts, Gavin & Shogren, Jason F., 2018. "Social capital and the voluntary provision of public goods," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 196-208.
    13. Gary D. Libecap, 2014. "Addressing Global Environmental Externalities: Transaction Costs Considerations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(2), pages 424-479, June.
    14. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:1:y:2007:i:2:p:1-10 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Malte F. Dold & Elias Emmerick, 2020. "Paul Dragos Aligica: Public entrepreneurship, citizenship, and self-governance," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 184(3), pages 467-472, September.
    16. Giuseppe Lanza & Dario Maimone Ansaldo Patti & Pietro Navarra, 2020. "Can Citizens Affect the Performance of Their Elected Representatives? A Principal–Agent Model of Strategic Interaction in Democratic Systems," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(7), pages 1-14, July.
    17. Eloi Laurent & Jean Jouzel, 2018. "The Well-being Transition: Measuring what counts to protect what matters," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03458057, HAL.
    18. Markus C. Arnold & Eva Ponick, 2006. "Kommunikation im Groves-Mechanismus — Ergebnisse eines Laborexperiments," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 89-120, February.
    19. Lars P. Feld & Benno Torgler, 2007. "Tax Morale after the Reunification of Germany: Results from a Quasi-Natural Experiment," CREMA Working Paper Series 2007-03, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    20. Moeliono, Moira & Brockhaus, Maria & Gallemore, Caleb & Dwisatrio, Bimo & Maharani, Cynthia D. & Muharrom, Efrian & Pham, Thuy Thu, 2020. "REDD+ in Indonesia: A new mode of governance or just another project?," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    21. Górriz-Mifsud, Elena & Olza Donazar, Luis & Montero Eseverri, Eduardo & Marini Govigli, Valentino, 2019. "The challenges of coordinating forest owners for joint management," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 100-109.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals
    • N51 - Economic History - - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Extractive Industries - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
    • Q15 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment
    • Q25 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Water

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:101:y:2011:i:1:p:49-63. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.