After twenty years of global negotiations, the world is still far from a comprehensive climate agreement. The "top-down" approach embodied by the Kyoto Protocol has all but stalled, chiefly due to disagreements over levels of ambition and objections to financial transfers. To avoid those...

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

In response to anthropogenic climate change, developed countries have committed themselves to raise 100 billion USD a year from 2020 onwards for addressing the needs of developing countries. In this paper, we investigate the economic and CO2 emission impacts of four alternative options for...

For a large global economy with normal goods, and an unequal world income distribution, we consider the endogenous formation and stability of an international environmental agreement (IEA) under nationally determined contributions (NDCs). Nations share green R&D efforts and enjoy R&D spillovers...

This paper argues that a uniform global tax-like price on carbon emissions, whose revenues each country retains, can provide a focal point for a reciprocal common climate commitment, whereas quantity targets, which do not nearly so readily present such a single focal point, tend to rely...

This paper develops an empirical framework for analyzing the timing of international treaties. A treaty is modeled as a dynamic game among governments that decide on participation in every period. The net benefit of treaty membership increases over time. Spillovers among members and non members...

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...

I analyze whether or not a monitoring problem regarding abroad abatement can justify the import quotas on abroad emission certificates applied by several emission trading schemes. For this purpose I extend the Becker (1968) Crime and Punishment model by heterogeneity in the observability of...

Evaluating the effectiveness of international agreements is inherently difficult due to the problems of self-selection, spillovers, and aggregate-level data. In this paper, I provide new and arguably more credible estimates on the effects of the Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP)...

Introducing discounts on Certified Emission Reductions from the Clean Development Mechanism is often treated as if it only imposed a substitution effect on a firm's decision between domestic and abroad abatement. Applying a cost minimization approach with a representative firm, I can show that...