We analyze bargaining over international climate agreements in a setting with incomplete information about abatement costs. Unilateral commitment to high abatement reduces the gains from global cooperation. This reduces the probability of reaching efficient international environmental...

Damage created by an export embargo on exhaustible resources is typically much smaller than the foregone revenues. Sanctions prompt the sanctioned country to extract resources later. With competitive resource markets, sanctions create no costs-to any of the countries. With non-price takers, the...

Incomplete information is a commitment device for time consistency problems. In the context of time consistent labor income taxation privacy can lead to a Pareto superior outcome and increases the effectiveness of public education as a second best policy.