In a laboratory experiment we study how costly punishment behavior of second and third parties in a social dilemma situation is affected by monitoring costs. Subjects have to pay a fee over and above punishment costs if they wish to condition punishments on previous play, which is equivalent to...

Enforcement agencies issuing warnings are an empirical regularity in the enforcement of laws and regulations, but a challenge to the standard economic theory of public enforcement. A number of recent contributions explain the popularity of warnings as a response to information asymmetries...

In a parsimonious two-sector general equilibrium model, we challenge the widely-held tenet that within a cap-and-trade system renewable energy policies have no effect on carbon emissions. If the cap does not capture all sectors, we demonstrate that variations of a renewable energy subsidy change...

In a general equilibrium model we clarify conditions for abatement-effective sector coupling. First, if the electricity sector is put under emissions trading any additional electricity consumption will be emission-free, such that relative emissions intensities do not matter for...

In this chapter we review research that rejects the widely held tenet that renewable energy promotion policies have no effect on carbon emissions if the electricity sector is subject to a cap-and-trade scheme. Specifically, it shows that such policies generally do have a net impact on carbon...

Decision-makers commonly avoid information on uncertain social effects of their privately beneficial choices. The dominant theory holds that such "strategic ignorance" is a means to circumvent inner moral conflict while acting self-servingly. In extension of the theory, we hypothesize that time...

Janssen et al. (2011, Experimental Economics, Vol. 14, pp. 547–566) studied an asymmetric, finitely repeated common-pool resource dilemma with free-form communication in which subjects made decisions about investments in an infrastructure, and about extraction from a resource made available by...

Major climate-cum-energy policies and respective impact projections rest on the widespread belief that increased energy efficiency can be equated with savings in energy use and emissions. This belief is flawed. Due to the rebound effect emissions savings from energy efficiency improvements will...