Why water is not an ordinary economic good, or why the girl is special

Water is not a normal economic good. It has a large number of characteristics that distinguish it from other goods. Individually, these characteristics may not be unique, but their combination makes water a special economic good. The metaphor about the girl refers to the fact that people always consider something which is close to their heart as special. A parent often fails to see that the daughter is just a girl. One could also blame water professionals for not seeing that water is just a normal economic good. The paper argues that there are good arguments to consider water as a special economic good. As a result, the application of regular economic theories to water resources management is not very efficient.. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.