IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/not/notcdx/2005-14.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Syr Darya River Conflict: An Experimental Case Study

Author

Listed:
  • KLAUS ABBINK

    (School of Economics, University of Nottingham)

  • MOLLER, Lars Christian

    (School of Economics, University of Nottingham)

  • SARAH O'HARA

    (School of Geography, University of Nottingham)

Abstract

With the disintegration of the USSR a conflict arose between Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan over the Syr Darya river. Upstream Kyrgyzstan operates the Toktogul reservoir which generates hydropower demanded mainly in winter for heating. Downstream Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan need irrigation water in summer, primarily to grow cotton. Regional agreements obliging Kyrgyzstan to high summer discharges in exchange for fossil fuel transfers in winter have generally been unsuccessful, notably due to lack of trust between the parties. Striving for self-sufficiency in irrigation water, Uzbekistan initiated new reservoir construction. This paper examines their economic impact. We report a laboratory experiment modelling the Syr Darya river scenario as a multi-round three-player trust game with non-binding contracts. Payoff schemes are estimated using real-life data. While basinwide efficiency maximisation requires regional cooperation, our results demonstrate that cooperation in the laboratory is hard to achieve. Uzbek reservoirs improve the likelihood of cooperation only weakly and their positive economic impact is limited to low-water years.

Suggested Citation

  • KLAUS ABBINK & MOLLER, Lars Christian & SARAH O'HARA, 2005. "The Syr Darya River Conflict: An Experimental Case Study," Discussion Papers 2005-14, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    • Handle: RePEc:not:notcdx:2005-14
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cedex/documents/papers/2005-14.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Georg Kirchsteiger & Arno Riedl, 1993. "Does Fairness Prevent Market Clearing? An Experimental Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(2), pages 437-459.
    2. Brandts, J. & Saijo, T. & Schram, A., 2000. "A Four Country Comparision of Spite, Cooperation and Errors in Voluntary Contribution Mechanisms," ISER Discussion Paper 0496, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    3. Simon Gächter & Armin Falk, 2002. "Reputation and Reciprocity: Consequences for the Labour Relation," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 104(1), pages 1-26, March.
    4. Chatterjee, Bishu & Howitt, Richard E. & Sexton, Richard J., 1998. "The Optimal Joint Provision of Water for Irrigation and Hydropower," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 295-313, November.
    5. D. Kilgour & Ariel Dinar, 2001. "Flexible Water Sharing within an International River Basin," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 18(1), pages 43-60, January.
    6. Chaim Fershtman & Uri Gneezy, 2001. "Discrimination in a Segmented Society: An Experimental Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 351-377.
    7. Güth, W. & Kroger, S. & Maug, E., 2003. "You May Have to Do it Again, Rocky! An Experimental Analysis of Bargaining with Risky Joint Profits," Discussion Paper 2003-117, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    8. Dinar, Ariel & Wolf, Aaron, 1994. "International Markets for Water and the Potential for Regional Cooperation: Economic and Political Perspectives in the Western Middle East," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(1), pages 43-66, October.
    9. Abbink, Klaus & Irlenbusch, Bernd & Renner, Elke, 2000. "The moonlighting game: An experimental study on reciprocity and retribution," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 265-277, June.
    10. Willinger, Marc & Keser, Claudia & Lohmann, Christopher & Usunier, Jean-Claude, 2003. "A comparison of trust and reciprocity between France and Germany: Experimental investigation based on the investment game," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 447-466, August.
    11. Stefan Ambec & Joseph A. Doucet, 2003. "Decentralizing hydro power production," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(3), pages 587-607, August.
    12. Dufwenberg, Martin & Gneezy, Uri, 2000. "Measuring Beliefs in an Experimental Lost Wallet Game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 163-182, February.
    13. McCarl, Bruce A. & Parandvash, Gholam Hossein, 1988. "Irrigation Development Versus Hydroelectric Generation: Can Interruptible Irrigation Play A Role?," Western Journal of Agricultural Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 13(2), pages 1-10, December.
    14. Joel R. Hamilton & Norman K. Whittlesey & Philip Halverson, 1989. "Interruptible Water Markets in the Pacific Northwest," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 71(1), pages 63-75.
    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. Duke, Charlotte, 2006. "Experimental Economics and Water Policy," 2006 Annual Meeting, August 12-18, 2006, Queensland, Australia 25369, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Karimov, A. & Smakhtin, V. & Mavlonov, A. & Gracheva, I., 2010. "Water 'banking' in Fergana valley aquifers--A solution to water allocation in the Syrdarya river basin?," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 97(10), pages 1461-1468, October.
    3. Klaus Abbink & Thomas Jayne & Lars Moller, 2011. "The Relevance of a Rules-based Maize Marketing Policy: An Experimental Case Study of Zambia," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(2), pages 207-230.
    4. Meißner, Nathalie, 2013. "The incentives of private companies to invest in protected area certificates: How coalitions can improve ecosystem sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 148-158.
    5. 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.
    6. Bunyod Holmatov & Jonathan Lautze & Jusipbek Kazbekov, 2016. "Tributary-level transboundary water law in the Syr Darya: overlooked stories of practical water cooperation," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 16(6), pages 873-907, December.
    7. Erika Weinthal, 2006. "Water Conflict and Cooperation in Central Asia," Human Development Occasional Papers (1992-2007) HDOCPA-2006-32, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

    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. KLAUS ABBINK & MOLLER, Lars Christian & SARAH O'HARA, 2005. "The Syr Darya River Conflict: An Experimental Case Study," Discussion Papers 2005-14, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    2. Klaus Abbink & Lars Moller & Sarah O’Hara, 2010. "Sources of Mistrust: An Experimental Case Study of a Central Asian Water Conflict," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 45(2), pages 283-318, February.
    3. Klaus Abbink & Thomas Jayne & Lars Moller, 2011. "The Relevance of a Rules-based Maize Marketing Policy: An Experimental Case Study of Zambia," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(2), pages 207-230.
    4. Brülhart, Marius & Usunier, Jean-Claude, 2004. "Verified Trust: Reciprocity, Altruism and Noise in Trust Games," CEPR Discussion Papers 4758, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Irlenbusch, Bernd & Sliwka, Dirk, 2003. "Transparency and Reciprocal Behavior," IZA Discussion Papers 887, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Shchetinin, Oleg, 2009. "Contracting Under Reciprocal Altruism," MPRA Paper 13457, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Charness, Gary & Kuhn, Peter, 2011. "Lab Labor: What Can Labor Economists Learn from the Lab?," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 3, pages 229-330, Elsevier.
    8. Abbink, Klaus, 2004. "Staff rotation as an anti-corruption policy: an experimental study," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 887-906, November.
    9. Fehr, Ernst & Falk, Armin, 2002. "Psychological foundations of incentives," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(4-5), pages 687-724, May.
    10. Ashraf, Nava & Bohnet, Iris & Piankov, Nikita, 2003. "Is Trust a Bad Investment?," Working Paper Series rwp03-047, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    11. Irlenbusch, Bernd & Sliwka, Dirk, 2006. "Career concerns in a simple experimental labour market," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 147-170, January.
    12. Israel Waichman & Ch’ng Kean Siang & Till Requate & Aric P. Shafran & Eva Camacho-Cuena & Yoshio Iida & Shosh Shahrabani, 2015. "Reciprocity in Labor Market Relationships: Evidence from an Experiment across High-Income OECD Countries," Games, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-22, October.
    13. Murnighan, J. Keith & Wang, Long, 2016. "The social world as an experimental game," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 80-94.
    14. Brent J. Davis & Rudolf Kerschbamer & Regine Oexl, 2017. "Is reciprocity really outcome-based? A second look at gift-exchange with random shocks," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 3(2), pages 149-160, December.
    15. Armin Falk, 2003. "Homo Oeconomicus versus Homo Reciprocans: Ansätze für ein neues Wirtschaftspolitisches Leitbild?," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 4(1), pages 141-172, February.
    16. René Fahr & Bernd Irlenbusch, 2008. "Identifying personality traits to enhance trust between organisations: an experimental approach," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(6), pages 469-487.
    17. Irlenbusch, Bernd & Sliwka, Dirk, 2005. "Transparency and reciprocal behavior in employment relations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 383-403, March.
    18. Vanessa Hilleringmann, 2018. "The Influence of Bribery and Relative Reciprocity on a Physician's Prescription Decision - An Experiment," Working Papers CIE 114, Paderborn University, CIE Center for International Economics.
    19. Robert Jiro Netzer & Matthias Sutter, 2009. "Intercultural trust. An experiment in Austria and Japan," Working Papers 2009-05, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    20. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2009. "Homo Reciprocans: Survey Evidence on Behavioural Outcomes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(536), pages 592-612, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Central Asia; common-pool resources; conflict; dams; hydropower; irrigation; experimental economics; regional public goods; transboundary rivers; Syr Darya; trust games; water;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • O53 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East
    • 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:not:notcdx:2005-14. 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: Jose V Guinot Saporta (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cdnotuk.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.