The Institutional Economics of Water : A Cross-Country Analysis of Institutions and Performance

This book provides a detailed and
comprehensive evaluation of water reform and water sector
performance from the perspectives of institutional economics
and political economy. It integrates institutional theory
with resource economics, and set against an exhaustive
review of the theoretical and empirical literature, the
authors develop an alternative methodology to quantitatively
assess the performance of institutions in the context of
water. This methodology is built on the principle of
'institutional ecology', the 'institutional
decomposition and analysis' framework, and the
'subjective theory' of institutional change. Using
this new methodology, plus information collected through an
international survey of 127 water experts, the authors
present a detailed empirical analysis of the process of
institution-performance interaction in the water sector.
Relying on the institutional transaction cost approach and
an extensive cross-country review of recent water sector
reforms, they also provide evidence on the relative role of
various factors that influence the extent and depth of water
institutional reforms in 43 countries and regions around the
world. The book concludes with far reaching implications for
the theory and policy of water sector reform in particular
and institutional reform in general.