Issue Linkage, Delegation, and International Policy Cooperation

Abstract

How many international agreements should there be, and who should sign them? When policy issues are separable, linking them in a "grand international agreement" facilitates policy cooperation by reallocating slack enforcement power. When policy issues are substitutes, issue linkage facilitates policy cooperation also by increasing the amount of available enforcement power. The contrary happens when issues are complements. Then a better strategy can be to delegate policy issues to different, independent national agencies with the same objectives than governments. Constitutional rules that permit credible delegation to agencies with different objectives than governments further facilitate international cooperation by generating stronger credible threats. Implications for multilateral agreements are discussed.

JEL Classification: E61, F13, F42, H77