This chapter presents the theory of international environmental agreements (IEAs). It explains what treaties do (or should do); when and why they succeed or fail; and whether they can be designed better. It focuses on the main questions that the literature on this topic has tried to answer,...

Solar geoengineering has received increasing attention as an option to temporarily stabilize global temperatures. A key concern surrounding these technologies is that heterogeneous preferences over the optimal amount of cooling combined with low deployment costs may allow the country with the...

This paper studies patenting decisions by firms in relation to the negotiation and signing of the Helsinki and Oslo protocol as part of the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution. We use a uniquely constructed patent data set on SO2 abatement technologies filed in 15 signatory and...

The literature on International Environmental Agreements (IEAs) predicts a rather low number of signatories to an IEA. This is in sharp contrast to empirical evidence. As experimental economics provides some evidence for more complex human behavior, extending the theory of IEAs to a broader...

We present typical scenarios and general insights from a novel dynamic model of farsighted climate coalition formation involving market linkage and cap coordination, using a simple analytical model of the underlying cost-benefit structure. In our model, the six major emitters of CO2 can link...