IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/2628.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Monopoly power and distribution in fragmented markets : the case of groundwater

Author

Listed:
  • Jacoby, Hanan G.*Murgai, Rinku*Rehman, Saeed Ur

Abstract

Using data from Pakistan's Punjab, the authors examine monopoly power in the market for groundwater - irrigation water extracted using private tubewells - a market characterized by barriers to entry and spatial fragmentation. Simple theory predicts that tubewell owners should price-discriminate in favor of their own share tenants. And this analysis of individual groundwater transactions over an 18-month period confirms such price discrimination. And among those studied, tubewell owners and their tenants use considerably more groundwater on their plots than do other farmers. The authors also provide evidence that monopoly pricing of groundwater leads to compensating - albeit small - reallocations of canal water, which farmers exchange in a separate informal market. Despite the substantial misallocation of groundwater, a welfare analysis show that monopoly pricing has limited effects on equity and efficiency. In the long run, a policy aimed at eliminating monopoly pricing would do little to help the poorest farmers.

Suggested Citation

  • Jacoby, Hanan G.*Murgai, Rinku*Rehman, Saeed Ur, 2001. "Monopoly power and distribution in fragmented markets : the case of groundwater," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2628, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:2628
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/962741468759556335/pdf/multi0page.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marcel Fafchamps & John Pender, "undated". "Precautionary Saving Credit Constraints and Investment: Theory and Evidence from Semi-Arid India," Computing in Economics and Finance 1997 37, Society for Computational Economics.
    2. Brian D. Wright & Kenneth M. Kletzer, 2000. "Sovereign Debt as Intertemporal Barter," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 621-639, June.
    3. John C. Driscoll & Aart C. Kraay, 1998. "Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimation With Spatially Dependent Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 549-560, November.
    4. William Hallagan, 1978. "Self-Selection by Contractual Choice and the Theory of Sharecropping," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(2), pages 344-354, Autumn.
    5. Basu, Kaushik & Bell, Clive, 1991. "Fragmented duopoly : Theory and applications to backward agriculture," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 145-165, October.
    6. Abhijit Banerjee & Dilip Mookherjee & Kaivan Munshi & Debraj Ray, 2001. "Inequality, Control Rights, and Rent Seeking: Sugar Cooperatives in Maharashtra," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(1), pages 138-190, February.
    7. Coate, Stephen & Ravallion, Martin, 1993. "Reciprocity without commitment : Characterization and performance of informal insurance arrangements," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 1-24, February.
    8. repec:wuk:andedp:9705 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Tushaar Shah, & Intizar Hussain & Saeed ur Rehman, 2000. "Irrigation Management in Pakistan and India: Comparing Notes on Institutions and Policies," IWMI Working Papers H027088, International Water Management Institute.
    10. Kletzer, Kenneth M. & Wright, Brian D., 1998. "Sovereign Debt as Intertemporal Barter," Center for International and Development Economics Research, Working Paper Series qt4qg3c42v, Center for International and Development Economics Research, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    11. Meinzen-Dick, Ruth Suseela, 1996. "Groundwater markets in Pakistan: participation and productivity," Research reports 105, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    12. Fafchamps, Marcel & Pender, John, 1997. "Precautionary Saving, Credit Constraints, and Irreversible Investment: Theory and Evidence from Semiarid India," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 15(2), pages 180-194, April.
    13. Basu, Kaushik, 1987. "Disneyland monopoly, interlinkage and usurious interest rates," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 1-17, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Charness, Gary B & Genicot, Garance, 2008. "Informal Risk Sharing in an Infinite-horizon Experiment," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series qt9sn8t91g, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
    2. Conning, Jonathan & Udry, Christopher, 2007. "Rural Financial Markets in Developing Countries," Handbook of Agricultural Economics, in: Robert Evenson & Prabhu Pingali (ed.), Handbook of Agricultural Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 56, pages 2857-2908, Elsevier.
    3. Morduch, Jonathan, 1999. "Between the State and the Market: Can Informal Insurance Patch the Safety Net?," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 14(2), pages 187-207, August.
    4. Fafchamps, Marcel & Lund, Susan, 2003. "Risk-sharing networks in rural Philippines," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 261-287, August.
    5. Gary Charness & Garance Genicot, 2009. "Informal Risk Sharing in an Infinite‐Horizon Experiment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(537), pages 796-825, April.
    6. Bloch, Francis & Genicot, Garance & Ray, Debraj, 2008. "Informal insurance in social networks," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 143(1), pages 36-58, November.
    7. Garance Genicot & Gary Charness, 2004. "An Experimental Test of Risk-Sharing Arrangements," 2004 Meeting Papers 807, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Carol Newman & Finn Tarp & Katleen Van Den Broeck, 2014. "Social Capital, Network Effects, and Savings in Rural Vietnam," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(1), pages 79-99, March.
    9. Tessa Bold, 2009. "Implications of Endogenous Group Formation for Efficient Risk‐Sharing," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(536), pages 562-591, March.
    10. Eliana La Ferrara, 2003. "Kin Groups and Reciprocity: A Model of Credit Transactions in Ghana," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(5), pages 1730-1751, December.
    11. Paal, Beatrix & Wiseman, Thomas, 2011. "Group insurance and lending with endogenous social collateral," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 30-40, January.
    12. Hasna Khemili & Mounir Belloumi, 2018. "Social Security and Fighting Poverty in Tunisia," Economies, MDPI, vol. 6(1), pages 1-17, February.
    13. Matthew T. Gregg, 2009. "Cultural Persistence as Behavior Towards Risk: Evidence from the North Carolina Cherokees, 1850-1880," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 18(2), pages 3-15, June.
    14. Garance Genicot, Georgetown University and Debraj Ray, New York University and Instituto de An´alisis Econ´omico (CSIC), 2004. "Informal Insurance, Enforcement Constraints, and Group Formation," Working Papers gueconwpa~04-04-03, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
    15. Rohan Pitchford & Mark L. J. Wright, 2013. "On the contribution of game theory to the study of sovereign debt and default," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 29(4), pages 649-667, WINTER.
    16. Stijn Claessens & M. Ayhan Kose, 2013. "Financial Crises: Explanations, Types and Implications," CAMA Working Papers 2013-06, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    17. He, Quqiong & Pan, Ying & Sarangi, Sudipta, 2018. "Lineage-based heterogeneity and cooperative behavior in rural China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 248-269.
    18. Alvaro Aguirre, 2017. "Contracting Institutions and Economic Growth," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 24, pages 192-217, March.
    19. Miao, Jianjun & Zhang, Yuzhe, 2015. "A duality approach to continuous-time contracting problems with limited commitment," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 159(PB), pages 929-988.
    20. Brutti, Filippo, 2008. "Legal enforcement, public supply of liquidity and sovereign risk," MPRA Paper 13949, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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:wbk:wbrwps:2628. 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: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.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.