Negotiating environmental agreements under ratification constraints

Sonja Köke and Andreas Lange

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2017, vol. 83, issue C, 90-106

Abstract: We analyze the impact of ratification constraints on the optimal terms of international environmental agreements (IEAs). For this, we combine the literature on IEAs with the public choice literature on two-level games. By also incorporating uncertain preferences of the pivotal voter in the ratification stage, we make several important contributions: (i) we contribute to a more realistic modeling of the temporal structure of international agreements, (ii) we show a surprising, yet intuitive non-monotonic relationship between the optimal commitment level and the variance of ratification decisions, (iii) we identify reasons to expect a larger number of countries to join international negotiations than predicted by most of the coalition formation literature based on a representative agent model. Ratification constraints thereby can improve the welfare gains from stable international agreements.

Keywords: International environmental agreement; Coalition formation; Ratification; Two-level games; Uncertainty; Minimum participation threshold (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 H41 P17 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:83:y:2017:i:c:p:90-106

DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2016.12.007

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Journal of Environmental Economics and Management is currently edited by M.A. Cole, A. Lange, D.J. Phaneuf, D. Popp, M.J. Roberts, M.D. Smith, C. Timmins, Q. Weninger and A.J. Yates

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