Almost all international environmental agreements include a minimum participation rule. Under such a rule an agreement becomes legally binding if and only if a certain threshold in terms of membership or contribution is reached. We analyze a cartel game with open membership and heterogeneous...

Viewing individual contributions as investments in emission reduction we rely on the familiar linear public goods- game to set global reduction targets which, if missed, imply that all payoffs are destroyed with a certain probability. Regulation by milestones does not only impose a final...

This paper surveys the recent literature on the political economy of the formation of international environmental agreements. The survey covers theoretical modelling approaches and empirical studies including experimental work. Central to our survey is the question how the political process...

This paper surveys the recent literature on the political economy of the formation of international environmental agreements. The survey covers theoretical modelling approaches and empirical studies including experimental work. Central to our survey is the question how the political process...

This paper is about the impact of international climate policy on greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction. We focus on the time before the official GHG emission reduction phase according to Kyoto (before 2008) and the hard and soft law elements of the agreement. We find that expectations on...

We analyze the effect of “milestones” on reaching a long-term target, which if missed implies dramatic payoff risks. In our experiment, a cumulative threshold public goods game, milestones are captured by intermediate contribution targets on the way to the final target. Missing the final...

This study is about structural change in the energy system. In a first step an econometric model is presented and in a second step diffusion of GTs is embedded theoretically. By focusing on different green technology industries (GT sector) in Germany, we analyze how policy induced demand...

Based on German experiences, this paper discusses the political economy of climate protection. The objective is to come to a better understanding of why climate change has become one of the main topics at the domestic agenda in some countries, despite the fact that there are obvious free-riding...

This paper discusses aspects related to the green technology sector in Germany. In a ï¬rst step institutional reforms enabling diffusion of green technologies are analysed. Cost arguments are also taken into account. In a second step a theoretical model developed by Tanguay et al. (2004) is...