This paper considers the endogenous formation of an institution to provide a public good. If the institution governs only its members, players have an incentive to free ride on the institution formation of others and the social dilemma is simply shifted to a higher level. Addressing this...

We reassess the well-known “narrow-but-deep” versus “broad-but-shallow” trade-off in international environmental agreements (IEAs), taking into account the principal-agent relationship induced by the hierarchical structure of international policy. To this end, we expand the modest...

We consider a sequential game in which one player produces a public good and the other player can influence this decision by making an unconditional transfer. An efficient allocation requires the Lindahl property: the sum of the two (implicit) individual prices has to be equal to the resource...

We extend the standard public good provision model to allow players to either like or dislike the public characteristic. Those who dislike it are able to take actions to reduce its level. We present conditions under which the existence of a unique noncooperative equilibrium is retained, and...

In this paper we explore the relationship between an equitable distribution of the cost shares in public-good provision on the one hand and the core property of an allocation on the other. In particular we show that it is an inhomogeneous distribution of cost shares that motivates some coalition...

We provide a test of the role of social preferences and beliefs in voluntary cooperation and its decline. We elicit individuals' cooperation preferences in one experiment and use them as well as subjects' elicited beliefs to explain contributions to a public good played repeatedly. We find...

That individuals contribute in social dilemma interactions even when contributing is costly is a well-established observation in the experimental literature. Since a contributor is always strictly worse off than a non-contributor the question is raised if an intrinsic motivation to contribute...

We examine international cooperation on technological development as a supplement to, or an alternative to, international cooperation on emission reductions. R&D should be increased beyond the non-cooperative level if (i) the technology level in one country is positively affected by R&D in other...

This paper considers endogenous coalition formations and endogenous technology choices in a model of private provision of global public goods. We show that the possibility of future interstate (partial) coordination may hinder the current adoption of better technology by a country outside the...

Recent international climate negotiations suggest that complete agreements are unlikely to materialize. Instead, partial cooperation between like-minded countries appears a more likely outcome. In this paper we analyze the effects of such partial cooperation between like-minded countries. In...