Report Managing California’s Water: From Conflict to Reconciliation By Ellen Hanak, Jay Lund, Jeffrey Mount, Richard Howitt ... Feb 24, 2011 California has struggled to manage its water effectively for more than 30 years. Today, the state needs to consider a set of wide-ranging reforms—for the benefit of the economy and the environment.Executive Summary Full Report [PDF, 9.06 MB] To view individual chapters, click on the links below. Introduction Floods, Droughts, and Lawsuits: A Brief History of California Water Policy California Water Today Drivers of Change Urgent and Fundamental Challenges Reconciling Ecosystems: Reversing Declines in Native Species Orchestrating the Management of Water Scarcity, Quality, and Flooding Managing Water as a Public Commodity Effective and Adaptive Governance Pathways to Reform A Way Forward Technical Appendix: Managing California’s Water: Insights from Interviews with Water Policy Experts Interactive Map: California’s Water Quality Problems Map Image: California’s Variable Climate This research was supported with funding from S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Pisces Foundation, Resources Legacy Fund, and Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority.
Report Increasing the Minimum Wage: California’s Winners and Losers By Thomas E. MaCurdy, Margaret O’Brien-Strain May 1, 2000 As a policy tool, minimum wage increases rely heavily on two assumptions: that such increases help the poor and impose little public or social cost. In Increasing the Minimum Wage: California’s Winners and Losers, Margaret O’Brien-Strain and Thomas MaCurdy test both assumptions by modeling the effects of the 1996 federal increase from $4.25 to $5.15 per hour. Noting that low-income families receive a relatively small portion of the additional earnings and that higher labor costs put upward pressure on the prices of products these families buy, the authors conclude that minimum wage increases do not help poor families as much as more targeted policy options.
