The paper starts with a critical assessment of attempts to measure sustainability. Moreover, incentives for the present generation to follow a sustainable path are a key issue. Sustainability is threatened by discounting and by the open access structure of the relationship between present and...

This article investigates the efficacy of international environmental agreements (IEAs). It reviews approaches from the political sciences and from economics to measure the efficacy of historical IEAs. It is argued that the current literature is deficient in many respects but that by appropriate...

Climate policy is the field where economists have a prime opportunity to polish their image of being dismal scientists. Economic analysis shows that the difficulties in fighting global warming are overwhelming. Attempts to coordinate greenhouse gas reductions internationally are undermined by...