Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T08:21:11.162Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Forming coalitions to negotiate North–South climate agreements

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2012

Alejandro Caparrós  and
Jean-Christophe Péreau
Alejandro Caparrós
Affiliation:
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Institute for Public Goods and Policies (IPP), Madrid, Spain. E-mail: [email protected]
Jean-Christophe Péreau
Affiliation:
Université Montesquieu-Bordeaux IV, GREThA (UMR CNRS 5113), Avenue Léon Duguit, 33608 Pessac cedex, France. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper analyzes North-South negotiations over climate change abatement. We consider that northern countries have an incentive to negotiate over a transfer to the southern countries in exchange for their abatement efforts rather than reducing their emissions at home. We study the incentives for northern and southern countries to form negotiation-coalitions at each side of the bargaining table and the impact of these negotiation-coalitions on the final outcome. We show that the incentives can be separated into direct efficiency gains, as fixed costs savings, and indirect bargaining power gains. Depending on the relative values of these gains, we determine the equilibrium of the game. We also show that bargaining power gains encourage southern countries to negotiate separately while they encourage northern countries to unite, and that this hinders the formation of the grand coalition.

Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 18 , Special Issue 1: Strategic behaviour and environmental commons , February 2013 , pp. 69 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aghion, P., Antràs, P., and Helpman, E. (2007), ‘Negotiating free trade’, Journal of International Economics 73(1): 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, S. (1994), ‘Self enforcing international environmental agreements’, Oxford Economic Papers 46: 878–894.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloch, F. (1996), ‘Sequential formation of coalitions in games with externalities and fixed payoff division’, Games and Economic Behavior 14: 90–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Breton, M., Fredj, K., and Zaccour, G. (2006), ‘International cooperation, coalitions stability and free riding in a game of pollution control’, Manchester School 74(1): 103–122.Google Scholar
Caparrós, A. and Péreau, J.-C. (2010), ‘Coalition formation and bargaining power: theory and application to international negotiations on public goods’, Instituto de Políticas y Bienes Públicos (IPP) Working Paper No. 17, Madrid.Google Scholar
Caparrós, A., Péreau, J.-C., and Tazdaït, T. (2004), ‘North–south climate change negotiations: a sequential game with asymmetric information’, Public Choice 121(3–4): 455–480.Google Scholar
Carraro, C. (2005), ‘Institution design for managing global commons: lessons from coalition theory’, in Demange, G. and Wooders, M. (eds), Group Formation in Economics: Networks, Clubs and Coalitions, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 354–380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carraro, C. and Siniscalco, D. (1993), ‘Strategies for the international protection of the environment’, Journal of Public Economics 2: 309–328.Google Scholar
Carraro, C., Marchiori, C., and Sgobbia, A. (2005), ‘Advances in negotiation theory: bargaining, coalitions and fairness’, FEEM Working Paper No. 66.05, Milan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chander, P. and Tulkens, H. (1997), ‘The core of an economy with multilateral environmental externalities’, International Journal of Game Theory 26: 379–401.Google Scholar
Chipty, T. and Snyder, C.M. (1999), ‘The role of firm size in bilateral bargaining: a study of the cable television industry’, Review of Economics and Statistics 81(2): 326–340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Clippel, G. and Serrano, R. (2008), ‘Bargaining, coalitions and externalities: a comment on Maskin’, Working Paper No. 2008-16, Department of Economics, Brown University, Providence, RI.Google Scholar
Finus, M. (2001), Game Theory and International Environmental Cooperation, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hampson, O. and Hart, M. (1995), Multilateral Negotiations: Lessons from Arms Control, Trade, and the Environment, Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Harstad, B. (2010), ‘How to negotiate and update climate agreements’, in Aldy, J.E. and Stavins, R.N. (eds), Post-Kyoto International Climate Policy: Implementing Architectures for Agreement, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 273–299.Google Scholar
IPCC (2007), Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Parry, M.L., Canziani, O.F., Palutikof, J.P., van der Linden, P.J. and Hanson, C.E. (eds), Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Maskin, E. (2003), ‘Bargaining, coalitions and externalities’, Presidential Address to the Econometric Society, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.Google Scholar
McGinty, M. (2007), ‘International environmental agreements among asymmetric nations’, Oxford Economic Papers 59: 45–62.Google Scholar
Muthoo, A. (1999), Bargaining Theory with Applications, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ray, D. and Vohra, R. (1999), ‘A theory of endogenous coalition structures’, Games and Economic Behavior 26: 286–336.Google Scholar
Ray, D. and Vohra, R. (2001), ‘Coalitional power and public goods’, Journal of Political Economy 109(6): 1355–1384.Google Scholar
Rotillon, G., Tazdaït, T., and Zeghni, S. (1996), ‘Bilateral or multilateral bargaining in the face of global environmental change?’, Ecological Economics 18: 177–187.Google Scholar
Rubinstein, A. (1982), ‘Perfect equilibrium in a bargaining model’, Econometrica 50: 97–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar