Governing the Commons? Water and Power in Pakistan’s Indus Basin

Hanan Jacoby and Ghazala Mansuri

Working Papers from eSocialSciences

Abstract: Surface irrigation is a common pool resource characterized by asymmetric appropriation opportunities across upstream and downstream water users. Large canal systems are also predominantly state-managed. It studies the water allocation under an rairrigation bureauccy subject to corruption and rent-seeking. Data on the landholdings and political influence of nearly a quarter-million irrigators in Pakistan’s vast Indus Basin watershed allow us to construct a novel index of lobbying power. Consistent with our model of misgovernance, the decline in water availability and land values from channel head to tail is accentuated along canals having greater lobbying power at the head than at the tail.

Keywords: eSS; Bureaucracy; rent-seeking; corruption; common property resource; irrigation; canal system; irrigation bureaucracy; corruption; landholding; political influence; novel index; lobbying power; +water; land value; Pakistan. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-10
Note: Institutional Papers
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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