This paper uses laboratory experiments to evaluate the performance of a deposit-refund mechanism used to enforce compliance with voluntary public-good commitments made in the absence of strong regulatory institutions. With this mechanism agents decide whether to join an agreement and pay a...

Whether nations are able to cooperatively manage shared resources through international environmental agreements (IEAs) depends on whether compliance with voluntary commitments can be enforced. Given that nations are sovereign enforcing compliance with IEAs cannot rely on the presence of a...