China and the United States are the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, making them pivotal players in global climate negotiations. Within the coming decade, however, India is set to become the most important counterpart to the United States, as it overtakes China as the country with the...

This paper analyzes optimal social discount rates where people derive utility from relative consumption. We identify and compare three separate discount rates: the social rate (taking positional externalities into account), the private rate, and the conventional Ramsey rate. Two main findings...

By using a choice experiment, this paper focuses on citizens' preferences for effort-sharing rules of how carbon abatement should be shared among countries. We find that Swedes do not rank the rule favoring their own country highest. Instead, they prefer the rule where all countries are allowed...

After twenty years of global negotiations, the world is still far from a comprehensive climate agreement. The "top-down" approach embodied by the Kyoto Protocol has all but stalled, chiefly due to disagreements over levels of ambition and objections to financial transfers. To avoid those...