ABSTRACT
The question of managing water resources in a democratic society, such as the United States, is one of implementing institutions that regulate the use of the re source. There are a small set of published papers that consider the problem of “op timal” (meaning economically efficient) groundwater management on a regional scale. Most, although not all (O’Mara and Duloy, 1984), of these papers deal with the arid western United States. The results of these studies suggest some general conclusions about the institutions that society uses to manage groundwater. We recognize that these generalizations are speculative; however, to the extent that they are valid, we believe that they have interesting implications for managing groundwater.
