Consensus Treaties

Treaties seeking to supply transnational public goods are usually modeled as a game in which cooperation is incomplete, with some countries participating and some not. This paper shows that, if the usual rationality concept is weakened somewhat, countries will often do better by negotiating a consensus treaty in which provision of the public good is chosen to maximize the collective payoff of all countries subject to participation in the treaty being full. The theory developed here thus explains when, and why, it may be better to negotiate a treaty that is "broad but shallow" rather than "narrow but deep."