In a simplifying analytical framework with endogenous levels of actual and self-reported emissions, we consolidate the existing literature into three main hypotheses about the relative merits, for a resource-constrained regulator, of random (RAM) and competitive (CAM) audit mechanisms in the...

How to design audit mechanisms that harness the benefits of self-reporting for achieving compliance with regulatory targets while limiting misreporting is a pressing questionin many regulatory contexts, from climate policies to public health. We theoretically and experimentally study the...

Pledges feature in international climate cooperation since the 2015 Paris Agreement. We explore how differences in pledgers' trustworthiness affect outcomes in a social dilemma that parallels climate change. In an online experiment, two participants interact with a randomly matched third player...

We study the optimal R&D trajectory in a setting where new technologies are never perfect backstops in the sense that there is no perfectly clean technology that eventually solves the pollution problem once and for all. New technologies have stings attached, i.e. each emits a specific stock...

The literature on environmental R&D frequently studies innovation as a two-stage process, with a single R&D event leading from a conventional polluting technology to a perfectly clean backstop. We allow for uncertainty in innovation in that the new technology may turn out to generate a new...

Unit donations are an alternative fundraising scheme in which potential donors choose how many units of a charitable good to fund, rather than just giving money. Based on evidence from an online experiment with 8,673 participants, we demonstrate that well-designed unit donation schemes can...