I develop a dynamic model of costly private provision of public goods where agents can also invest in cost-reducing technologies. Despite the n+1 stocks in the model, the analysis is tractable and the (Markov perfect) equilibrium unique. The framework is used to derive optimal incomplete...

A "conservation good" (such as a tropical forest) is owned by a seller who is tempted to consume (or cut), but a buyer benefits more from conservation. The seller does conserve if the buyer is expected to buy, but the buyer is unwilling to pay as long as the seller conserves. This contradiction...

Real-world negotiations differ fundamentally from existing bargaining theory. Inspired by the Paris Agreement on climate change, this paper develops a novel bargaining game in which each party quanti.es its own contribution (to a public good, for example), before the set of pledges must be...

Every government that controls an exhaustible resource must decide whether to exploit it or to conserve and thereby let the subsequent government decide whether to exploit or conserve. This paper develops a theory of this situation and shows when a small probability that some future government...

Public regulation is increasingly facing competition from "private politics" in the form of activism and corporate self-regulation. However, its effectiveness, welfare consequences, and interaction with public regulation are poorly understood. This paper presents a unified dynamic framework for...

We develop a dynamic game to explore the interaction between regulation and private policies, such as self-regulation by firms and activism. Without a public regulator, the possibility of self-regulation is bad for the firm, but good for activists who are willing to maintain a costly boycott to...

We develop a dynamic game to explore the interaction between regulation and private policies, such as self-regulation by firms and activism. Without a public regulator, the possibility of self-regulation is bad for the firm, but good for activists who are willing to maintain a costly boycott to...

We analyze participation in international environmental agreements (IEAs) in a dynamic game where countries pollute and invest in green technologies. If complete contracts are feasible, participants eliminate the hold-up problem associated with their investments; however, most countries prefer...

Why do rational politicians choose inefficient policy instruments? Environmental regulation, for example, often takes the form of technology standards and quotas even when cost-effective Pigou taxes are available. To shed light on this puzzle, we present a stochastic game with multiple...