IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlawec/doi10.1086-700934.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Collective Action by Contract: Prior Appropriation and the Development of Irrigation in the Western United States

Author

Listed:
  • Bryan Leonard
  • Gary D. Libecap

Abstract

We analyze the economic characteristics of prior-appropriation water rights adopted across the US West in the 19th century. Much of the region's massive irrigation infrastructure was developed by private irrigators. We develop a model to show how prior appropriation facilitated investment by securing water against future claims and defining a property right to a specific amount of water that was the basis for contracting among numerous heterogeneous agents. We construct a data set of over 7,000 water rights in Colorado from 1852 to 2013, including location, date, size, infrastructure investment, irrigated acreage, and geographic characteristics to test the predictions of the model. We find that prior appropriation facilitated cooperation through contracting, increasing infrastructure investment, and promoting irrigated agriculture that contributed up to 16 percent of western states' income by 1930. Areas with preexisting norms for supporting collective action exhibit smaller differences in investment based on formal contracts.

Suggested Citation

  • Bryan Leonard & Gary D. Libecap, 2019. "Collective Action by Contract: Prior Appropriation and the Development of Irrigation in the Western United States," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(1), pages 67-115.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:doi:10.1086/700934
    DOI: 10.1086/700934
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/700934
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/700934
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/700934?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Joey Blumberg & Christopher Goemans & Dale Manning, 2022. "Perceived Water Scarcity and Irrigation Technology Adoption," NBER Chapters, in: American Agriculture, Water Resources, and Climate Change, pages 173-201, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Smith, Steven M., 2021. "The relative economic merits of alternative water right systems," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    3. Daniel Cooley & Steven M. Smith, 2022. "Center Pivot Irrigation Systems as a Form of Drought Risk Mitigation in Humid Regions," NBER Chapters, in: American Agriculture, Water Resources, and Climate Change, pages 135-171, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Browne, Oliver R. & Ji, Xinde James, 2023. "The Economic Value of Clarifying Property Rights: Evidence from Water in Idaho’s Snake River Basin," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    5. R. Aaron Hrozencik & Nicholas A. Potter & Steven Wallander, 2022. "The Cost-Effectiveness of Irrigation Canal Lining and Piping in the Western United States," NBER Chapters, in: American Agriculture, Water Resources, and Climate Change, pages 107-134, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Leonard, Bryan & Parker, Dominic P. & Anderson, Terry L., 2020. "Land quality, land rights, and indigenous poverty," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    7. Dietrich Earnhart & Nathan P. Hendricks, 2023. "Adapting to water restrictions: Intensive versus extensive adaptation over time differentiated by water right seniority," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(5), pages 1458-1490, October.
    8. Halonen-Akatwijuka, Maija & Pafilis, Evagelos, 2020. "Common ownership of public goods," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 555-578.
    9. Hannah Whitley, 2024. "Exogenous, Endogenous, and Peripheral Actors: A Situational Analysis of Stakeholder Inclusion within Transboundary Water Governance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(9), pages 1-28, April.
    10. Bertone Oehninger, Ernst & Lin Lawell, C.-Y. Cynthia, 2021. "Property rights and groundwater management in the High Plains Aquifer," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    11. Grumstrup, Ethan & Rollins, Kimberly S. & Pram, Kym & Koirala, Samjhana, 2021. "The Effect of Climate Change on Agricultural Production with Priority Water Rights," 2021 Annual Meeting, August 1-3, Austin, Texas 314068, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. Ellen M. Bruno & Nick Hagerty & Arthur R. Wardle, 2022. "The Political Economy of Groundwater Management: Descriptive Evidence from California," NBER Chapters, in: American Agriculture, Water Resources, and Climate Change, pages 343-365, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    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:ucp:jlawec:doi:10.1086/700934. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLE .

    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.