Water Rights and Markets in the US Semi-arid West: Efficiency and Equity Issues

There are both high resource and political costs in defining and enforcing property rights to water and in managing it with markets. In this paper, I examine these issues in the semi-arid U.S. West where many of the intensifying demand and supply problems regarding fresh water are playing out. I begin by illustrating the current state of water markets in 12 western U.S. states. There are major differences in water prices across uses (agriculture, urban, environmental) and these differences appear to persist, suggesting that water markets have not developed fully enough to narrow the gaps. Moreover, there is considerable difference in the extent and nature of water trading across the western states, suggesting that water values and transaction costs of trade vary considerably across jurisdictions. I then turn to the resource and political costs of defining water rights and expanding the use of markets. In this discussion, efficiency and equity objectives play important, often conflicting, roles. This tension reflects the very social nature of the water resource. To understand the problems of expanding water markets, it is critical to understand the varying political, bureaucratic, and administrative incentives involved

How and Why Decision Models Influence Marketing Resource Allocations

We study how and why model-based Decision Support Systems (DSSs) influence managerial decision making, in the context of marketing budgeting and resource allocation. We consider several questions: (1) What does it mean for a DSS to be "good?"; (2) What is the relationship between an anchor or reference condition, DSS-supported recommendation and decision quality? (3) How does a DSS influence the decision process, and how does the process influence outcomes? (4) Is the effect of the DSS on the decision process and outcome robust, or context specific? We test hypotheses about the effects of DSSs in a controlled experiment with two award winning DSSs and find that, (1) DSSs improve users' objective decision outcomes (an index of likely realized revenue or profit); (2) DSS users often do not report enhanced subjective perceptions of outcomes; (3) DSSs, that provide feedback in the form of specific recommendations and their associated projected benefits had a stronger effect both on the decision making process and on the outcomes.Our results suggest that although managers actually achieve improved outcomes from DSS use, they may not perceive that the DSS has improved the outcomes. Therefore, there may be limited interest in managerial uses of DSSs, unless they are designed to: (1) encourage discussion (e.g., by providing explanations and support for the recommendations), (2) provide feedback to users on likely marketplace results, and (3) help reduce the perceived complexity of the problem so that managers will consider more alternatives and invest more cognitive effort in searching for improved outcomes.marketing models;resource allocation;DSS;decision process;decision quality

Privacy Management and Optimal Pricing in People-Centric Sensing

With the emerging sensing technologies such as mobile crowdsensing and Internet of Things (IoT), people-centric data can be efficiently collected and used for analytics and optimization purposes. This data is typically required to develop and render people-centric services. In this paper, we address the privacy implication, optimal pricing, and bundling of people-centric services. We first define the inverse correlation between the service quality and privacy level from data analytics perspectives. We then present the profit maximization models of selling standalone, complementary, and substitute services. Specifically, the closed-form solutions of the optimal privacy level and subscription fee are derived to maximize the gross profit of service providers. For interrelated people-centric services, we show that cooperation by service bundling of complementary services is profitable compared to the separate sales but detrimental for substitutes. We also show that the market value of a service bundle is correlated with the degree of contingency between the interrelated services. Finally, we incorporate the profit sharing models from game theory for dividing the bundling profit among the cooperative service providers.Comment: 16 page

Water Rights and Markets in the U.S. Semi Arid West: Efficiency and Equity Issues

There are both high resource and political costs in defining and enforcing property rights to water and in managing it with markets. In this paper, I examine these issues in the semi-arid U.S. West where many of the intensifying demand and supply problems regarding fresh water are playing out. I begin by illustrating the current state of water markets in 12 western U.S. states. There are major differences in water prices across uses (agriculture, urban, environmental) and these differences appear to persist, suggesting that water markets have not developed fully enough to narrow the gaps. Moreover, there is considerable difference in the extent and nature of water trading across the western states, suggesting that water values and transaction costs of trade vary considerably across jurisdictions. I then turn to the resource and political costs of defining water rights and expanding the use of markets. In this discussion, efficiency and equity objectives play important, often conflicting, roles. This tension reflects the very social nature of the water resource.

The Value of Scarce Water: Measuring the Inefficiency of Municipal Regulations

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 examine the welfare implications of typical drought policies. Using price variation across and within markets, we identify end-use specific price elasticities. Our results suggest that current policies target water uses that households, themselves, are most willing to forgo. Nevertheless, we find that use restrictions have costly welfare implications, primarily due to household heterogeneity in willingness-to-pay for scarce water.

A Comparative Assessment of Water Markets: Insights from the Murray-Darling Basin of Australia and the Western US

Water markets in Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) and the US west are compared in terms of their ability to allocate scarce water resources. The study finds that the gains from trade in the MDB are worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Total market turnover in water rights exceeds $2 billion per year while the volume of trade exceeds over 20$4.3 billion (2008 $) spent or committed by urban buyers between 1987 and 2008. The two-market comparison suggests that policy attention should be directed towards ways to promote water trade while simultaneously mitigating the legitimate thirdparty concerns about how and where water is used, especially conflicts between consumptive and in situ uses of water. The study finds that institutional innovation is feasible in both countries and that further understanding about the size, duration, and distribution of third-party effects from water trade, and how these effects might be regulated, can improve water markets to better manage water scarcity.water markets, US west, Murray-Darling Basin, gains from trade

The Value of Scarce Water: Measuring the Inefficiency of Municipal Regulations

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 examine the welfare implications of typical drought policies. Using price variation across and within markets, we identify end-use specific price elasticities. Our results suggest that current policies target water uses that households, themselves, are most willing to forgo. Nevertheless, we find that use restrictions have costly welfare implications, primarily due to household heterogeneity in willingness-to-pay for scarce water.

Differential Attention to Attributes in Utility-theoretic Choice Models

We show in a theoretical model that benefits of allocating additional attention to evaluating the marginal attribute with in choice set depend upon the expected utility loss from making a suboptimal choice as a result of ignoring that incremental attribute. Guided by this analysis, we then develop a very general and practical empirical method for measuring the individual's propensity to attend to attributes. As a proof of concept, we offer an empirical example of our method using a conjoint analysis of demand for programs to reduce health risks. Our results suggest that respondents differentially allocate attention across attributes, as a function of the mix of attribute levels in a choice set. This behavior can cause researchers who fail to model attention allocation to incorrectly estimate the marginal utilities derived from selected attributes. This illustrative example is a first attempt to implement an attention-corrected choice model with a sample of field data from a conjoint choice experiment.conjoint choice, bounded rationality, attention to attributes, choice set design

Investigating Time-Varying Effects of Stakeholder Relations on Firm Performance through Brand Equity

From the resource-based view of the firm, good stakeholder relations provide sustainable competitive advantages. To manage their scarce resources effectively, firms should understand how (1) multiple stakeholder relations influence firm performance separately and jointly through brand equity over time and (2) stakeholder relations interact with firms’ strategic emphasis – a relative emphasis by which firms decide to allocate their resources toward value creation or appropriation. Using a sample of 165 North American firms during 2009-2015, the authors apply a hierarchical linear model (HLM) approach to measure the time-varying effects of multiple stakeholder relationships on firm performance. Following the classification of stakeholders in the literature, the authors subdivide multiple stakeholders into two categories: primary stakeholders that are essential for business operations and secondary stakeholders that are not essential for the survival of the firm. The results show the existence of individual time-varying effects of primary and secondary stakeholder relations on brand equity, as well as a time-varying synergistic effect. The authors find a slightly higher, but statistically insignificant, positive effect of primary stakeholder relations on brand equity than of secondary stakeholder relations. In addition, the authors find that when firms focus more on value creation, the effect of primary stakeholder relations on brand equity is stronger than is the effect of secondary stakeholder relations and vice versa. Brand equity is found to fully mediate the effect of relations with each group of stakeholders on long-term firm performance and to partially mediate the synergistic effect between primary and secondary stakeholders on long-term firm performance. These findings offer insights for managers to make strategic decisions about effectively and efficiently managing stakeholder relations considering their time-varying effects