Essays on international environmental agreements

Currently countries cooperate voluntarily to restrict harmful impacts of global environmental problems like greenhouse gas emissions which cause a shrinking ozone layer and global warming. Conventional classic theory predicts the number of countries actively engaged in an International Environmental Agreement (IEA) to be very small. In contrast, several large coalitions, e. g. the Montreal Protocol, can be observed. Standard IEA models presume that a country’s behavior is motivated exclusively by self interest. However, experimental economics reveals that human behavior is more complex. Empirical findings suggest that a personal perception of equity influences international climate negotiations. As participants may dislike being treated or treating someone unfairly extending the current theory of IEAs is clearly promising. This book introduces justice and fairness into a theoretical analysis by extending government objectives through setting preferences in environmental protection and use of exogenous instruments. The extended models allow to explain a considerable proportion of real-life IEAs. Out of the analysis various policy rules for stable international cooperations can be derived for global environmental protection.