Countries often have private information about their willingness to pay for protecting the climate system and their cost of emission reductions. We use a principal-agent model to re-examine the economic case for unilateral action by individual countries, in our case of the principal. We ?nd that...

A central question in climate policy is whether early investments in low-carbon technologies are a useful first step towards a more effective climate agreement in the future. We introduce a climate cooperation model with endogenous R&D investments where countries protect their international...

Several European countries have reformed their labor market institutions. Incentive effects of unemployment benefits have been an important aspect of these reforms. We analyse this issue in a principal-agent model, higher level of unemployment benefits improves the workers' position in wage...

In this paper, we analyze technology transfers (TT) and tradable emission rights, which are core issues of the ongoing climate negotiations. Subsidizing TT leads to the adoption of better abatement technologies in developing countries, thereby reducing the international permit price. This is...

We consider contracting of a principal with an agent if multilateral externalities are present. The motivating example is that of an interna- tional climate agreement given private information about the willingness- to-pay (WTP) for emissions abatement. Due to multilateral externalities the...

We consider contracting of a principal with an agent if multilateral externalities are present. The motivating example is that of an international climate agreement given private information about the willingness-to-pay (WTP) for emissions abatement. Due to multilateral externalities the...

Electricity from renewable sources avoids the disadvantages of conventional power generation (air pollution, greenhouse gases, nuclear risk) but often meets with local resistance due to visual, acoustic, and odor nuisance. We use representative panel data on the subjective well-being of 36,475...

This paper studies institutional change as a response to anticipated changes in the natural environment. Power plants occasionally need to be curtailed during heat waves, causing economic losses and putting electricity supply at risk. This problem likely exacerbates due to global warming, so...

Climate effects of unilateral carbon policies are undermined by carbon leakage. To counteract leakage and increase global cost-effectiveness carbon tariffs can be imposed on the emissions embodied in imports from non-regulating regions. We present a theoretical analysis on the economic...

This paper suggests a theoretical framework and provides empirical evidence for a hump-shaped relationship between the fraction of novelty-seeking traits in society and current levels of per capita income. The hypothesis is that novelty-seeking traits produce two countervailing effects on...