Abstract |
Social well being is an accepted subset of water investment feasibility criteria. The purpose of this study was to isolate income redistribution impacts conferred by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation projects. Four project sites have been utilized to yield both pre and post project estimates of farm income and wealth. Production functions of the Cobb-Douglas type were estimated to yield information about factor shares, and thus enable inferences to be made about distribution of total product among the factors, which can be reduced to show changes in income/wealth distributions. Lorenz curves were developed to show changes in distribution of wealth and net income in terms of family enterprise, per acre, and per irrigated acre. Listing of individual farmers income and wealth measures are included to show movements (from-to) from pre to post project time periods. About 80% of the farm families in the sample changed positions (75% up, 25% down) in terms of the wealth measures. (Modified author abstract) |