Renegotiation Proofness and Climate Agreements: Some Experimental Evidence

The notion of renegotiation-proof equilibrium has become a cornerstone in non-cooperative models of international environmental agreements. Applying this solution concept to the infinitely repeated N-person Prisoners' Dilemma generates predictions that contradict intuition as well as conventional wisdom about public goods provision. This paper reports the results of an experiment designed to test two such predictions. The first is that the higher the cost of making a contribution, the more cooperation will materialize. The second is that the number of cooperators is independent of group size. Although the experiment was designed to replicate the assumptions of the model closely, our results lend very little support to the two predictions.

Decentralized Enforcement, Sequential Bargaining and the Clean Development Mechanism

While there is a vast literature both on international bargaining and on how international agreements can be enforced, very little work has been done on how bargaining and enforcement interact. An important exception is Fearon (1998), who models international cooperation as a two-stage process, in which the bargaining process is constrained by a need for decentralized enforcement (meaning that the agreement must be enforced by the parties themselves, rather than a third party such as a court). Using the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol as an example, the present paper proposes a different model of this kind of interaction. This model follows Fearon's in so far as we both use the infinitely repeated Prisoners' Dilemma to capture the enforcement phase of the game. However, while Fearon depicts the bargaining stage as a War of Attrition, the present model sees that stage as a sequential bargaining game of the Ståhl-Rubinstein type. The implications of the present model are compared both to those of the Ståhl-Rubenstein model and to those of the Fearon model. A surprising conclusion is that a need for decentralized enforcement tends to make the bargaining outcome more symmetrical than otherwise. Thus, the impact of bargaining power is actually smaller when the resulting agreement must be enforced by the parties themselves, than it is if enforcement is taken care of by a third party.

The Price of Non-compliance with the Kyoto Protocol: The Remarkable Case of Norway

To induce compliance, an international enforcement mechanism needs to authorize the use of punitive consequences against a non-compliant country. However, it is reasonable to require that such consequences do not cause considerable damage to other countries as well. The compliance mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol does not meet this requirement. The Marrakesh Accords instruct the Enforcement Branch of the Compliance Committee to impose punitive consequences on a country that fails to fulfill its commitments. These consequences will not only be costly to the non-compliant country. They will have considerable adverse welfare effects for compliant countries too. Using a numerical model, we show that in the case of Norway, the welfare effects can actually be worse if another country (such as Canada, Japan or Russia) is punished than if Norway itself is punished. Similar effects will also be experienced by other buyers of emission permits. But Norway suffers more than other buyers because it is also a major exporter of fossil fuels

Editorial to the Issue on Climate Governance and the Paris Agreement

"This thematic issue of Politics and Governance serves as a Festschrift in honor of Professor Dr. Philos. Arild Underdal on his 70th birthday. In this editorial, the guest editors summarize a few of Professor Underdal's many academic merits and achievements. They also provide a synopsis of each of the ten contributions to the Festschrift, which focuses on climate governance in general and the 2015 Paris Agreement in particular." (author's abstract

The Theory of Full International Cooperation: An Experimental Evaluation

The concept of renegotiation-proof equilibrium has become a cornerstone in recent game theoretic reasoning about the stability of international environmental agreements. Applying this solution concept to a linear version of the infinitely repeated N-person Prisoners’ Dilemma, Scott Barrett has been able to derive a number of interesting (and sometimes provocative) predictions about international cooperation to curb climate change. This paper reports the results of a laboratory experiment designed to test two central predictions from Barrett’s model. The first prediction says that the higher the cost of making a contribution, the more cooperation will materialize. The second claims that the number of cooperators is independent of group size. The experiment was designed to replicate the assumptions of Barrett’s model closely. We find that the experimental confrontation lends very little support to the two predictions

Can exit prizes induce lame ducks to shirk less? Experimental evidence

Elected representatives serving their final period face only weak incentives to provide costly effort. However, overlapping generations (OLG) models suggest that exit prizes sustained by trigger strategies can induce representatives in their final period to provide such effort. We evaluate this hypothesis using a simple OLG public good experiment, the central treatment being whether exit prizes are permitted. We find that a significantly higher number of subjects in their final period contribute when exit prizes are permitted. However, this result does not originate from use of trigger strategies. More likely explanations include gift-exchange and focal-point effects

International Nonregimes: A Research Agenda1

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146934/1/j.1468-2486.2007.00672.x.pd

Decentralized enforcement, sequential bargaining, and the clean development mechanism

While there is a vast literature both on international bargaining and on how international agreements can be enforced, very little work has been done on how bargaining and enforcement interact. An important exception is Fearon (1998), who models international cooperation as a two-stage process in which the bargaining process is constrained by a need for decentralized enforcement (meaning that the agreement must be enforced by the parties themselves rather than a third party, such as a court). Using the Clean Development Mechanism as an example, the present paper proposes a different model of this kind of interaction. The model follows Fearon’s in so far as we both use the infinitely repeated Prisoners’ Dilemma to capture the enforcement phase of the game. However, while Fearon depicts the bargaining stage as a War of Attrition, the present model sees that stage as a sequential bargaining game of the Ståhl-Rubinstein type. The implications of the present model are compared both to those of the Ståhl-Rubinstein model and to those of the Fearon model. A surprising conclusion is that a need for decentralized enforcement tends to make the bargaining outcome more symmetrical than otherwise. Thus, the impact of bargaining power is actually smaller when the resulting agreement must be enforced by the parties themselves than it is if enforcement is taken care of by a third party