Neil Hughes

Neil Hughes appears in Our mission: Find the world’s best economic ideas (Summer School World Tour) as the analyst perspective on Australia’s water markets. The source says his team estimated that water trading in the southern basin produced benefits worth about 12% of water rights, or roughly $117 million per year.

Hughes is also used to explain why outside investors can sometimes help Water Rights Trading by increasing the chance that buyers and sellers find each other. The episode notes that this view is contested, which keeps the page tied to Market Speculation as a design problem rather than a simple endorsement.

Connections

• Australia and Murray-Darling Basin - water-market geography.
• Water Market Design, Water Rights Trading, and Market Speculation - concepts his analysis informs.
• Carly Marriott - farmer-backlash perspective in the same source.