¿Sequía o saqueo? Scarcity, Power, and Inequality in Chilean Water Markets
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- “No es sequía, es saqueo” (it’s not drought, it’s plunder) is a common phrase in activist circles to argue that it is not just drought that threatens Chile’s water resources, but rather a market-based model for water management that results in an extremely unequal distribution of water. This phrase exists in stark contrast to the worldwide acclaim Chile—the only country in the world with fully-privatised water rights—has received for its model’s potential to combat worsening water scarcity. Despite these opposing viewpoints and their implications for water markets as a drought-response mechanism in other parts of the world, empirical understanding of how scarcity and inequality impact Chile’s water markets remains limited, especially on a broader geographic and temporal scale. This study draws upon a dataset of nationwide water rights transactions, combining them with Standardised Precipitation Index data to identify water scarcity’s impact on market outcomes. I then employ Social Network Analysis methods to quantify market power and inequalities across time and space. I find that a small group of agents dominates the market through their involvement in the vast majority of transactions and volume transacted, their ownership of the lion’s share of water volume, and their strong tendency to trade with one another. Markets only respond to scarcity in the areas with the most unequal distribution of water volume, and scarcity decreases the tendency of highly-powerful agents to trade amongst themselves, suggesting that drought merely serves the interests of the powerful through predatory market behaviour.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date modified | December 5, 2022 |
| Publication date | June 1, 2022 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Reade Malagueño, Benji |
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0643-4091
(unverified)
|
|---|---|---|
| Thesis advisor | Naylor, Roz |
Subjects
| Subject | Water justice |
|---|---|
| Subject | Drought |
| Subject | Chile |
| Subject | Water markets |
| Genre | Text |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
Access conditions
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC).
Preferred citation
- Preferred citation
- Reade Malagueño, B. and Naylor, R. (2023). ¿Sequía o saqueo? Scarcity, Power, and Inequality in Chilean Water Markets. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/js053kc3325
Collection
Undergraduate Honors Theses, Doerr School of Sustainability
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- Contact
- benjilrm@gmail.com
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