The evolution of large-scale cooperation among genetic strangers is a fundamental unanswered question in the social sciences. Behavioral economics has persuasively shown that so called ‘strong reciprocity’ plays a key role in accounting for the endogenous enforcement of cooperation. Insofar...

We study a stochastic model of influence where agents have “yes” or “no” inclinations on some issue, and opinions may change due to mutual influence among the agents. Each agent independently aggregates the opinions of the other agents and possibly herself. We study influence processes...

This paper examines characteristics of cooperative behavior in a repeated, n-person, continuous action generalization of a Prisoner’s Dilemma game. When time preferences are heterogeneous and bounded away from one, how “much” cooperation can be achieved by an ongoing group? How does group...

In the literature investigating the impact of uncertainty on short-run and long-run investment, most authors have used a log linear profit function. This functional form has been generally considered a reasonable approximation for more general ones and has the advantage of providing closed form...

The paper studies the effect of scale economies on the optimal capacity adjustment of a mutiplant firm. It is shown that with increasing economies of scale plants are ranked in decreasing order, after which the optimal choice is to scrap the largest one. On the contrary, if there are decreasing...

In this paper we report results from a comparison of numerically calibrated game theoretic integrated assessment models that explore stability and performance of international coalitions for climate change mitigation. Specifically, by means of this ensemble of models we are able to identify...

School of Economics, University of Nottingham, University Park Campus and Department of Economics (AE1), Maastricht University

The theory of international environmental agreements overwhelmingly assumes that governments engage as unitary agents. Each government makes choices based on benefits and costs that are simple national aggregates, and similarly on a single set of national-level motivations, together drawing a...

A government bargains a mutually convenient agreement with a multinational corporation to extract a natural resource. The corporation bears the initial investment and earns as a return a share on the profits. The host country provides access and guarantee conditions of operation. Being the...