A novel version of a Voluntary Contribution Mechanism game tests how player cooperation responds to changes in incentives, i.e., payoffs that depend on performance relative to different reference groups. Cooperation is greatest when players are competing against players in other four-person...

This paper explores the economic and political dimensions of responding to water scarcity by increasing supply rather than reducing demand with examples from San Diego (US), Almeria (ES) and Riyadh (SA). Each case explains how leaders benefit by obscuring the costs of desalinated supplies. In...

This paper describes the structure, incentives, assessments, and results of a course in common-pool resource management (CPRM) that can be run in 8 weeks with 15-30 students. The course structure helps students learn about the complexity of CPRM by grouping students into "too large" groups where...

This apology is neither a wholesale rejection of economic thought and perspective nor an admission of error in our understanding of ecological values or human impacts on the environment. Life is complex. It's an apology for the unintended damage that's resulted from misapplying economic ideas:...

Nations persist and thrive when economic and social institutions complement each other; they weaken and die when these institutions conflict. The same is true for sustainable water management, which is becoming more difficult as rising demand, falling supply and intensifying climate change...

Our non-representative sample of 245 undergraduates had significantly lower scores on questions presented in the standard heterogeneous form (i.e., Direct Demand equation and Inverse Demand graph) than on questions presented in non-standard homogenous forms. This result, which holds for advanced...

Water scarcity turns into shortage when water supplies are mismatched with user demands. After clarifying the different social and private uses of water, I explain how to use prices to allocate treated (``utility'') water among municipal and industrial users and untreated (``raw'') water among...