Greenhouse gas policies confront the trade-off between the costs of reducing emissions and the benefits of avoided climate change. The risk of uncertain and potentially irreversible catastrophes is an important issue related to the latter, and one that has not yet been well incorporated into...

We analyze a repeated game in which countries are polluting as well as investing in technologies. While folk theorems point out that the first best can be sustained as a subgame-perfect equilibrium when the players are sufficiently patient, we derive the second best equilibrium when they are...

We propose a novel mechanism for coalitional policies in a climate coalition. In our proposed setup, national (unilateral) and federal (multinational) emission policies coexist. A joint federal institution, appointed by all members, sets a joint emission policy for its members and must attain...

The complexity of integrated assessment models (IAMs) prevents the direct appreciation of the impact of uncertainty on the model predictions. However, for a full understanding and corroboration of model results, analysts might be willing, and ought to identify the model inputs that influence the...

We analyze bargaining over international climate agreements in a setting with incomplete information about abatement costs. Unilateral commitment to high abatement reduces the gains from global cooperation. This reduces the probability of reaching efficient international environmental agreements

We study international free-riding-proof coalitions to solve trans-boundary environmental problems such as global warming. We show that the free-riding problem is rather serious so that a free-riding-proof coalition can consist of only a small number of countries. In the optimal coalitional...

The economic prescription for climate change is clear: price carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions to internalize climate damages. In practice, a variety of political economy constraints prevent the introduction of a carbon price equal to the full social cost of emissions. This...

To decarbonize the power sector policy-makers need to commit to long-term credible rules for climate and energy policy. Otherwise, time-inconsistent policy-making will impair investments into low-carbon technologies. However, the future benefits and costs of decarbonization are subject to...

Consider a dynamic model with two countries or coalitions that consume and trade fossil fuel. A non-abating country owns the entire fuel stock and is not concerned about climate change, represented by a ceiling on the carbon dioxide concentration. The government of the other country implements...