In a recent paper, Barrett (2006) reaches the conclusion that in general the answer to the question in the title is no. We show in this paper that a focus on the R&D phase in the development of breakthrough technologies changes the picture. The stability of international treaties improves and...

Achieving efficiency for many global environmental problems requires voluntary cooperation among sovereign countries due to the public good nature of pollution abatement. The theory of international environmental agreements (IEAs) in economics seeks to understand how cooperation among countries...