A Voting Architecture for the Governance of Free-Driver Externalities, with Application to Geoengineering

Martin Weitzman

No 18622, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Climate change is a global "free rider" problem because significant abatement of greenhouse gases is an expensive public good requiring international cooperation to apportion compliance among states. But it is also a global "free driver" problem because geoengineering the stratosphere with reflective particles to block incoming solar radiation is so cheap that it could essentially be undertaken unilaterally by one state perceiving itself to be in peril. This paper develops the main features of a "free driver" externality in a simple model based on the asymmetric consequences of type-I and type-II errors. I propose a social-choice decision architecture based on the solution concept of a supermajority voting rule and derive its basic properties. In the model this supermajority voting rule attains the socially optimal cooperative solution, which is a new theoretical result around which the paper is built.

JEL-codes: Q5 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-env and nep-res
Note: EEE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Published as A Voting Architecture for the Governance of Free-Driver Externalities, with Application to Geoengineering† Martin L. Weitzman Article first published online: 14 JUL 2015 DOI: 10.1111/sjoe.12120 © The editors of The Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2015. Issue Cover image for Vol. 117 Issue 3 The Scandinavian Journal of Economics Early View (Online Version of Record published before inclusion in an issue)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w18622.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: A Voting Architecture for the Governance of Free-Driver Externalities, with Application to Geoengineering (2015)
Working Paper: A Voting Architecture for the Governance of Free-Driver Externalities, with Application to Geoengineering (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18622

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w18622

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().