Optimal Transfers and Participation Decisions in International Environmental Agreements

Abstract

Transfers often play a crucial role in encouraging participation in international environmental agreements (IEAs). However, the economic literature on transfers is very limited and results achieved so far do not exploit the full potential of transfers for successful treaty-making. Therefore, in this paper, we develop a framework that enables us to study the role of transfers in a more systematic way. We propose a design for transfers using both internal and external financial resources and making welfare optimal agreements self-enforcing. To illustrate the relevance of our transfer scheme for actual treaty-making, we use a well-known integrated assessment model of climate change to show how appropriate transfers may be able to induce almost all countries into signing a self-enforcing climate treaty.

Keywords: Self-enforcing international environmental agreements, Climate policy, Transfers

JEL Classification: C72, H23, Q25, Q28