Policymakers' horizon and the sustainability of international cooperation

Paola Conconi () and Nicolas Sahuguet ()

Journal of Public Economics, 2009, vol. 93, issue 3-4, pages 549-558

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of policymakers' horizon on the sustainability of international cooperation. We describe a prisoners' dilemma game between two infinitely-lived countries run by policymakers. We show that re-election incentives can act as a discipline device, making it easier to sustain cooperation between policymakers with finite but potentially renewable mandates than between infinitely-lived policymakers. We also show that, when voting suffers from a recency bias, policymakers may have incentives to "collude" to get re-elected and term limits may help international cooperation.

Keywords: Self-enforcing; cooperation; Re-election; incentives; Term; limits (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009

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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:93:y:2009:i:3-4:p:549-558

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