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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of the Bureau of Reclamation's water resource projects over the period 1930-1970 on regional economic growth in the Southwest. The empirical results indicate that these investments have had an impact on regional economic growth and that the extent of the effect depends on the nature of the water investment, the state of the regional economy, and the amount and nature of other investments in the region. Study Area Geographic Region Lower Colorado region Arizona Upper Colorado region Colorado New Mexico Utah Wyoming Southwest region Colorado New MexicoLower Missouri region Colorado sector. Rather it is based on economic, social, and political considerations. Clearly, further research is needed in this area, but this will be beyond the scope of our efforts. ProjectsAfter experimenting with alternative specifications of our proximate production relationships with capital measures for six of the bureau investment categories (i.e., investments in Gila, Parker-Davis, and Salt River irrigation, power, municipal and industrial water supply, fish and wildlife, recreation, and flood controls), equations (1) andColbran, Florida, fruit growers dam, Mancos, Paonia, Pine River, (2) were selected as final equations because of overall goodness Silt, Smith Fork, Uncompahgre, and of fit and conformity of the relationships with a priori'