Assessing a Policy Grab Bag: Federal Water Policy Reform
分析联邦水政策改革中多种激励与命令控制政策组合的经济影响，通过模型预测水使用、农业收益和城市消费者剩余的变化，指出忽略政策工具次优实施可能误判成本效益。
Abstract This article examines the economic impacts of policy alternatives for addressing allocative inefficiencies among agricultural, urban, and environmental uses of federal water. The Central Valley Project Improvement Act, composed of multiple incentive‐based and command‐and‐control policies, forms the context for this analysis. Estimated multi‐output agricultural revenue functions and urban water demand functions are incorporated into a nonlinear programming model designed to predict changes in water use, returns to agriculture, and urban consumer surplus. Results suggest that analysis that does not explicitly model policy instruments implemented at sub‐optimal levels and, as part of a package of reforms, could over‐ or underestimate the costs, benefits, and effectiveness of each policy instrument.