We analyze river sharing games in which a set of agents located along a river shares the available water. Using coalition theory, we find that the potential benefits of water trade may not be sufficient to make all agents in the river cooperate and acknowledge property rights as a prerequisite...

We analyse the redistribution of a resource among agents who have claims to the resource and who are ordered linearly. A well known example of this particular situation is the river sharing problem. We exploit the linear order of agents to transform the river sharing problem to a sequence of...

We introduce the notion of a stone age equilibrium to study societies in which property rights are absent, bilateral exchange is either coercive or voluntary, and relative strength governs power relations in coercive exchange. We stress the importance of free disposal of goods which allows for...

This paper examines stability of international climate agreements for carbon abatement under an optimal transfer rule and renegotiations. The optimal transfer rule suggested to stabilise international environmental agreements (Weikard 2005, Carraro, Eyckmans and Finus 2006) is no longer optimal...

In a river claims problem, agents are ordered linearly, and they have both an initial water endowment as well as a claim to the total water resource. We provide characterizations of two solutions to this problem, using Composition properties which have particularly relevant interpretations for...

Programmes against hunger require the identification of the undernourished. For this purpose a cutoff point is fixed which partitions the population of a region into two groups: those with insufficient access to food and those whose food needs are satisfied. We describe the standard method used...

Food aid to fight hunger in developing countries is provided on a bilateral bases and by multilateral organisations. This paper examines the hypothesis that multilateral food aid is more effective than bilateral food aid. We measure donor performance under the premise that donations should...

Poverty indices are usually calculated on the basis of cross section income data. As an indicator of well-being the results of such analyses have two shortcomings. First, income insecurity and the risk of becoming poor may affect a person's well-being even if ex post her income is above the...