Groundwater: Focusing on the Real Issue
指出地下水福利经济学研究多聚焦于最优控制与无控制的二分法，主张在半干旱地区赋予地下水产权并让市场决定用水分配可达到次优解，若允许潜在用户与现有用户进行科斯谈判，次优解可提升为帕累托最优解，并以新墨西哥州和亚利桑那州的水法与绩效为例。
Most studies of the welfare economics of groundwater have focused mainly on the dichotomy between optimal control of groundwater use and no control at all. This article argues that, under circumstances that generally prevail in semiarid zones, assigning property rights to groundwater and permitting the market to determine the allocation of water use can lead to a second-best solution. An argument is made that if potential users would be allowed to Coase-bargain with incumbent users on the issuance of new groundwater rights, the second-best solution is elevated to a Pareto-optimal solution. This article is also a tale of two states: water law and performance in New Mexico and Arizona.