The paper discusses the problem of initial assignments of rights. An attempt is made to characterise a system of rights in the spirit of Rawls’s first principle of justice according to which society should adopt the most extensive system of equal basic liberties. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2004

This paper analyses stability of coalitions for greenhouse gas abatement under different sharing rules applied to the gains from cooperation. We use a 12-region model to examine internal and external stability of coalitions. We determine and compare stable coalitions under different surplus...

This paper studies the impact of pragmatic and optimal transfer schemes on the incentives for regions to join international climate agreements. With an applied model that comprises twelve world regions we investigate: (i) a benchmark without transfers, (ii) scenarios with allocation-based rules...

Phosphorus (P) is an essential input into agriculture with no substitute. Thus international and intertemporal P allocations greatly impact food security which requires increased food production for a growing world population. As high quality phosphorus mines are being depleted, recycling gains...

In many international river basins disputes over property rights to water lead to inefficient water allocation and a waste of resources. In this paper, we examine how contested water rights impede water trade. To show this, we use a model in which property rights to water are contested because...

Biodiversity loss has been recognized as one of the most important global environmental problems, but the choice of conservation policies is hampered by the lack of an operational concept of biodiversity. Weitzman (1992, 1998) develops a framework for the measurement of diversity and the...