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Misgoverning the Commons: Corruption and Rent-seeking in Pakistan's Indus Basin
1 : The World Bank
Surface irrigation is a common pool resource characterized by asymmetric appropri-
ation opportunities across upstream and downstream water-users. Large canal systems
are also predominantly state-managed. We study water allocation under an irrigation
bureaucracy subject to corruption and rent-seeking. Data on the landholdings and
political in uence of nearly a quarter-million irrigators in Pakistan's vast Indus basin
watershed allow us to construct a novel index of lobbying power. Consistent with our
model of misgovernance, the decline in water availability and land values from channel
head to tail is accentuated along canals having greater lobbying power at the head
than at the tail.
