Self-Enforcing Environmental Agreements with the Optimal Intensity of Cooperation

Thomas Eichner () and Mark Schopf
Additional contact information
Thomas Eichner: University of Hagen

Environmental & Resource Economics, 2025, vol. 88, issue 2, No 1, 249-278

Abstract: Abstract This paper analyzes international environmental agreements in three-stage games consisting of a membership subgame, the signatories’ decision on the intensity of cooperation, and an emissions subgame. Signatories may act as Stackelberg leaders or play Nash. In the Stackelberg game, the highest intensity of cooperation between signatories is optimal. In the Nash game, a moderate or the highest intensity of cooperation is optimal if emissions are strategic substitutes. In this case the equilibrium emissions and the stable coalition of the Nash game with optimal cooperation intensity are identical to the equilibrium emissions and the stable coalition of the Stackelberg game with the highest cooperation intensity. Finally, we apply our results to coalition formation games of the literature. In the applied Nash games, optimizing with respect to the cooperation intensity may enlarge the stable coalition up to the grand coalition which implements the first best.

Keywords: Optimal intensity of cooperation; Stable coalition; Nash; Stackelberg (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C71 F55 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10640-024-00927-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
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:kap:enreec:v:88:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s10640-024-00927-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... al/journal/10640/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10640-024-00927-1

Access Statistics for this article

Environmental & Resource Economics is currently edited by Ian J. Bateman

More articles in Environmental & Resource Economics from Springer, European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().