According to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, global collective action is needed to stabilize “greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous [our emphasis] anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” The Framework Convention thus...

Previous research shows that collective action to avoid a catastrophic threshold, such as a climate "tipping point," is unaffected by uncertainty about the impact of crossing the threshold but that collective action collapses if the location of the threshold is uncertain. Theory suggests that...

In some important multi-player situations, such as efforts to supply a global public good, players can choose the game they want to play. In this paper we conduct an experimental test of the decision to choose between a tipping game, in which every player wants to contribute to the public good...

According to the model of HOEL (1991), a unilateral emissions abatement of a global pollutant leads to lower aggregated emissions in a game with a simultaneous decision protocol. Our experiment tests the Hoel model and examines the question of whether a leader can induce additional abatement of...

In this study, the real demand for global and local environmental protection in Beijing, China, is elicited and investigated. Participants from Beijing were offered the opportunity to contribute to voluntary climate change mitigation by purchasing permits from two Chinese CO2 emissions trading...

We study the introduction of new technologies when their costs are subject to idiosyncratic uncertainty and can only be fully learned through individual experience. We set up a dynamic model of clean experience goods that replace old polluting consumption options and show how optimal regulation...

We use a laboratory experiment to identify the impact of risk in the private and public dimensions of social investments. In variants of a public good game, we separate the return a subject’s investment generates for herself vs. the return to others. We find a detrimental effect of risk on...

We report experimental findings on the role of charitable promises in bargaining settings. We vary the enforceability of such promises within variants of ultimatum games where the proposer suggest a split between himself, the responder and a char-itable donation. By reneging on initial pledges,...

We investigate how moral considerations, background conditions and risk can trigger resistance to implement trading institutions. We provide survey results on moral opposition to trade on several goods and services like body organs, sex services, surrogate mothers, trade with developing nations,...

We report experimental evidence on the voluntary provision of public goods under threshold uncertainty. By explicitly comparing two prominent technologies, summation and weakest link, we show that uncertainty is particularly detrimental to threshold attainment under weakest link, where low...