This paper provides a model of natural resource exploration, where the sole motivation to explore arises from a strategic incentive to preempt competitors. It is assumed that private ownership rights over a finite unexplored and commonly held resource stock can be established through a costly...

The implicit assumption made when deterrence solutions to repeated games are constructed, is that perfectness is a sufficient condition for the credibility of threats. In this paper it is shown that the validity of this assumption hinges on another assumption which proves to be unsatisfactory -...

Environmental norms seem to be on the upsurge everywhere. Norm-orientation is, however, neglected in neoclassical economics which is fixed on homo economicus as the model of human behaviour. The paper addresses the question whether homo economicus needs to give way to a norm-oriented concept in...

A situation is analysed in which two countries negotiate the financing of the incremental costs which accrue if one of them switches from a non-sustainable onto a sustainable development path. The other country's incentive to pay arises as it benefits from the developing country's environmental...

An explanation is given why communist economies usually react smoothly but sometimes very dramatically to seemingly minor changes in the political and economic environment. In this paper such dramatic reactions materialize in a sudden clamp-down on individual freedom and sudden economic...

Consider a country possessing a specific production factor in fixed quantity, producing in combination with land a stream of services through time. Some of these services are consumed domestically. The bulk of it, however, is consumed world-wide. Despite the services the country provides to the...

A folk theorem in environmental economics suggests that in the presence of transboundary environmental spillovers international negotiations may improve on environmental quality. More so, if side-payments according to the victim-pays principle are undertaken, environmental safeguards agreed upon...

Much of what may be coined the creeping degradation of the environment is due to economic projects which are subject to public approval. The erection of buildings, the siting of factories, all require permission from bureaucracies. To answer the question whether there is too much or not enough...