Rationing the Commons

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ryan, Nicholas; Sudarshan, Anant
• 署名单位: Yale University; University of Chicago
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/717045
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 210-257
• 关键词: green-revolution; groundwater depletion; political-economy; field experiment; PRODUCTIVITY; adaptation; water; IMPACT; MARKET; sustainability

摘要

Common resources may be managed with inefficient policies for the sake of equity. We study how rationing the commons shapes the efficiency and equity of resource use in the context of agricultural groundwater use in Rajasthan, India. We find that rationing binds on input use, such that farmers, despite trivial prices for water extraction, use roughly the socially optimal amount of water on average. The rationing regime is still grossly inefficient, because it misallocates water across farmers, lowering productivity. Pigouvian reform would increase agricultural surplus by 12% of household income yet fall well short of a Pareto improvement over rationing.