Providing clean water requires maintenance, as well as the initial connections that are typically measured. Frequently, the water supply fails in the developing world, especially when users don't pay the marginal cost of water. This paper uses the timing of frequent, unexpected water service...

We explore the first period of sustained decline in child mortality in the U.S. and provide estimates of the independent and combined effects of clean water and effective sewerage systems on under-five mortality. Our case is Massachusetts, 1880 to 1920, when authorities developed a sewerage and...

This article provides an overview of the use of field experiments in energy and resource economics. I concentrate on two areas of study; field experiments that (i) speak to the use of dynamic pricing plans to manage the use of electricity and water and (ii) explore the adoption of energy saving...

Rather than allowing water prices to reflect scarcity rents during periods of drought-induced excess demand, policy makers have mandated command-and-control approaches, like the curtailment of certain uses, primarily outdoor watering. Using unique panel data on residential end-uses of water, we...

This paper considers the role of incentive based climate adaptation policies. It uses the early literature on pricing and capacity choices under demand uncertainty to describe how revised price structures for the substitutes for climate services can be treated as anticipatory adaptation. In many...

Greater historical perspective is needed to enlighten current debate about future human responses to higher temperatures and increased precipitation variation. We analyze the impact of climatic conditions and variability on agricultural production in five semi-arid western states. We assemble...

Fresh water supplies increasingly are under stress in many parts of the world due to rising populations, higher per capita incomes and corresponding consumption, greater environmental concerns, and the effects of climate change. Water rights and markets are part of the institutional menus for...

The paper provides an integrated framework to assess water markets in terms of their institutional underpinnings and the three 'pillars' of integrated water resource management: economic efficiency, equity and environmental sustainability. This framework can be used: (1) to benchmark different...

The construction of municipal water systems was a major event in the history of American cities -- bringing relief from disease, providing resources to combat fires, attracting business investment, and promoting development generally. Although the first large-scale municipal water system in the...

Cities generate negative, as well as positive, externalities; addressing those externalities requires both infrastructure and institutions. Providing clean water and removing refuse requires water and sewer pipes, but the urban poor are often unwilling to pay for the costs of that piping....