In 2003 the Kyoto Protocol, which imposes legally binding greenhouse gas emission constraints on industrialized countries, is likely to enter into force. The Protocol has been celebrated as a milestone in climate protection, but standard economic theory casts doubt that it will go beyond...

We show that U.S. withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol is straightforward under political economy considerations. The reason is that U.S. compliance costs exceed low willingness to pay for dealing with global warming in the U.S. The withdrawal had a crucial impact on the concretion of the Protocol...

Klimaschutz stellt aus Sicht der ökonomischen Theorie ein rein öffentliches Gut dar. Internationale Kooperation zum Zweck der Milderung oder Verhinderung der globalen Erwärmung ist daher mit den bekannten fatalen Anreizproblemen behaftet: Auf der Basis freiwilliger, dezentraler Entscheidungen...

Ten years after the initial Climate Change Convention from Rio in 1992, the developed world is likely to ratify the Kyoto Protocol which has been celebrated as a milestone in climate protection. Standard economic theory, however, casts doubt that Kyoto will go beyond symbolic policy. In this...

In a series of experiments we show that people learn to play the efficient outcome in an open-ended rent-seeking game. This result persists despite quite different experiment environments and designs, like different propensities of competition, group sizes etc., and is interpretable as a...

In this paper, we analyse if individual inequality aversion measured with simple experimental games depends on whether the monetary endowment in these games is either a windfall gain (“house money”) or a reward for a certain effort-related performance. We then examine whether the way of...

An experiment designed to find the real demand for climate protection was conducted among a sample of the residential population in Mannheim, Germany. Participants were offered the opportunity to contribute to climate protection by purchasing European Union Allowances which were then withdrawn...

We discuss self-interested uses of equity arguments in international climate negotiations. Using unique data from a world-wide survey of agents involved in international climate policy, we show that the perceived support of different equity rules by countries or groups of countries may be...