My paper was signalling the whole time - Robin Hanson wins again

You've raised a great question. Two comments.

Their stated goal is reducing urban unemployment

The most efficient way to reduce unemployment is neither to cut checks nor to subsidize water in the desert. The thing is, the Jordanian policymakers did not say "we want to keep everyone having the same amount of income", which is the problem you are getting at, and one other countries have attempted (with mixed results, see below). What the Jordanians said is "we want to keep urban unemployment down". So subsidizing farms is a way to keep people from migrating, but the water provision is a terribly inneficient subsidy. Furthermore, from a "cause prioritization" standpoint its also really inneficient. Paying to keep unprofitable businesses alive is a less efficient way to reduce unemployment than, say, investing in infrastructure or even just subsidizing profitable business sectors.

Basically, picking winners is hard but its better than picking an existing loser and buying them an input good at 4 times its market value. The most efficient way to reduce So their stated argument "we want to reduce urban unemployment" is either not their real goal or they are very biased.

Some polities can cut checks reasonably efficiently, but the Jordanians cannot

Some political systems do a better job of cutting checks than others. The conventional wisdom is that most European countries have successfully preserved pastoralism through cutting checks without having to distort their economy with across-the-board subsidies. The conventional wisdom is also that the US attempt to cut checks for export job loss has failed. blah blah first-past-the-post blah blah pork barrel.

The Jordanians are probably very very bad at cutting checks. The best piece of evidence is that the GoJ expects to fail at cutting checks, and they would know. The second best piece of evidence is what happens when they open municipalities [LW · GW] (patronage). I suspect USAID gets laughed out of the room when they say "the Danes did it, why can't you". So you are correct about that.

This is perfect! Thank you Habryka for the help!

Basically, cities want secure stores of groundwater for the long term. But farmers will use up all the water if they can. Right now most countries let total anarchy reign because the farmers are hard to stop (they’re everywhere and they constantly dig wells and they hide and bribe and shoot at regulators. So our primary question was “if we look at a country with really severe urban deficit, does that motivate the government to go out and reduce overuse? Or are the challenges and perverse incentives impossible to overcome?

We found that the Jordanians took advantage of the fact that barriers to regulation are unevenly distributed between aquifers. So you can find aquifers that are cheap to enforce and have few people capable of rioting/couping (the Jordanians fear revolt more than coup, but usually expect the reverse). The current preferred approach is to tax all the farmers in every basin (aquifer) to close a few less productive farms in each basin. But then you’re spending your scarce enforcement and “pissing people off” budget in low yield basins. Instead the Jordanians targeted one area as “preserve” for future urban use and successfully shut it down completely (way lower enforcement costs). Then you concentrate your resources on protecting one area.

Ooo I can make an analogy to wildlife preserves!

By coincidence the easiest area to make preserve was 600 km south and 1 km below Amman. So they paid probably an extra 2billion usd (1B Capital + 100 M/year energy) over 10 years to pump that water. They always framed the “pissing people off” budget as about “unemployment”, but it wasn’t about unemployment because they could have used 2 billion to reduce unemployment more efficiently with almost any other policy!

Two words, one meme: Robin Hanson.

The frontpage/personal distinction is many things, but it is primarily an on-topic/off-topic distinction, and your post is on-topic for LessWrong (whatever that weird, amorphous topic is exactly). It's an interesting post.

(The meme is great, and is one of the reasons I upvoted the post, but wasn't relevant to frontpage/personal.)

You’ll have to explain the “utility you give up” framework.

Signaling loyalty and actually being loyal are pretty much the same here. We need other details to see if they diverge.

Arguably letting the farms close and replacing them with competitive industries for Mafraq would be cheaper and more loyal, but would signal less loyalty. But the Jordanians do not expect to succeed at such development projects anyway.

Great question.

The truth in your model. Both the Saudi and Jordanian regimes give "import licenses" to families (Corleoni-style extended families). They basically say "only this family can import (nitrogen or automobiles or washer-dyers). The Jordanians have one on tomatoe paste which is why their tomato paste tastes crappy. Particularly when a autocrat dies, some companies or families are dispossessed if the ruler suspects they will be disloyal. Mohammad Bin Salman did this recently.

What your model is missing. Factions are rarely just the top leadership. The most stable faction type is basically a pyramid scheme. You have some leader at the top - a tribal elder, a warlord, a colonel, a utilities company owner etc. who has a direct relationship to the autocrat usually. Then beneath him are other elders, and beneath them are heads of nuclear families or clans, and beneath them are usually prosperous peasants. As you go down the rewards decrease, but the reward-responsibility combination continues. IIRC, the Mafraq tribes people saved the Jordanian monarchy as recently as Black September and continue to serve in the army in high numbers. If you just recruited from every tribe equally there could be a revolution! Can't have that.

TLDR: Even though the tribes people are not elites, this tribe supports the Jordanian army.

Fun fact: Arab tribes elect their sheyoukh, so are a more "egalitarian" faction type than is typical.