Conflicts and Cooperation in Managing Environmental Resources

ISBN-13: 9783642467677 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 338 str.

R. Diger Pethig

Opis

The use of environmental resources involves strategic be- havior of self-interested agents, bargaining, cooperation and other efforts to provokeor settle conflicts. In order to model conflicts and cooperation in managingthese resources most papers contained in the book make use of advanced game theoretic concepts. The first six contributions investigate conceptual issues of international conflicts and cooperation while the other four address conflicts and cooperation arising in the context of monitoring and enforcing environmental controls. The emphasis is on demonstrating how new developments in economic (game) theory can fruitfully be applied to important environmental issues. Descriptive as well as normative approaches are presented. In the context of international environmental problems attention is focused on the consequences of non-cooperative behavior and on the incentives for, and barrieres to, the emergence of cooperation. Incomplete implementation of environmental controls can be attributed, to some extent, to failures of monitoring and enforcement which, in turn, raises the issue of designing institutional arrangements allowing for (more) effective enforcement. Students and researchers with a working knowledge of economic theory can expect to learn how complex issues of economic-environmental interaction are successfully tackled by advanced (game) theoretic methods.

Spis treści

Editor’s Introduction.- Editor’s Introduction.- 1: International Dimensions.- 1 International Environmental Agreements as Games.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Reaching agreement.- 2.1. Identical countries.- 2.2. Cost differences.- 2.3. Benefit differences.- 2.4. Choice of a benchmark.- 2.5. Summary.- 3. Sustaining agreement.- References.- Comments by Henk Folmer.- 2 Emission Taxes in a Dynamic International Game of CO2 Emissions.- 1. Introduction.- 2. A static game.- 3. A dynamic game.- 4. The open loop equilibrium without taxes.- 5. The Markov perfect equilibrium without taxes.- 6. Other subgame perfect equilibria.- 7. Pigouvian taxes.- 8. Non-commitment and taxation.- References.- Comments by Otto Keck.- 3 Critical Loads and International Environmental Cooperation.- 1. Critical loads.- 2. Naive interpretations.- 3. Stock of pollutants — the case of one country.- 4. Stock of pollutants — several countries and the open loop equilibrium.- 5. Closed loop or feed back equilibria.- References.- Comments by Henry Tulkens.- 4 Environmental Conflicts and Strategic Commitment.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Analytical framework.- 3. Asymmetric players and endogenous strategic timing.- 4. N players and strategic team formation.- 5. Conclusion.- References.- Comments by Detlev Homann.- 5 The Choice of Environmental Policy Instruments and Strategic International Trade.- 1. Introduction.- 2. The model.- 3. Single stage Cournot model.- 4. Two stage Stackelberg model.- 5. Two stage Cournot model.- 6. Conclusions.- References.- Comments by Marji Lines.- 6 Economic Models of Optimal Energy Use under Global Environmental Constraints.- 1: The CO2 Problem in Basic Models of Optimal Use of Fossil Fuels.- 2. Background problem on climatic change and global environmental constraints.- 3. Economic studies on the CO2 problem.- 4. Preliminary definitions and the general model.- 5. A simplified model.- 5.1. Necessary conditions.- 5.2. Sufficient conditions.- 5.3. Definition and optimality of equilibrium.- 5.4. Illustration by a phase plane diagram.- 6. A discrete type impact of CO2 emissions.- 7. Further specification of the model.- 8. Discussion.- 2: Technical Change, International Co-operation, and Structural Uncertainty.- 10. A taxonomy of technical change.- 11. Neutral technical change in a general model.- 12. International co-operation.- 13. Structural uncertainty.- 13.1. Modelling uncertainty about critical CO2 levels as uncertainty about a critical, limited natural resource.- 13.2. Treating structural uncertainty.- 13.3. Numerical calculations.- 14. Conclusions and perspectives.- Appendix A: Existence and Uniqueness of the Optimal Solution.- Appendix B: Existence and Stability of Equilibrium.- References.- Comments by Oskar Von Dem Hagen.- Comments by Cees Withagen.- 2: Monitoring and Enforcement.- 7 Monitoring and Enforcement of Pollution Control Laws in Europe and the United States.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Differences among monitoring and enforcement problems and systems.- 3. Key dimensions of monitoring and enforcement systems.- 3.1. Probability of monitoring.- 3.2. Surprise.- 3.3. Definition of a violation.- 3.4. Penalties and other responses to violations.- 4. Some evidence on European & U.S. choices in monitoring & enforcement.- 5. A glimpse of the future? Recommendations from the U.K. (The “Kinnersley Report”).- 6. Concluding comments.- References.- Comments by Heinz Welsch.- 8 The Economics of Negotiations on Water Quality — An Application of Principal Agent Theory.- 1. Introduction.- 2. The basic model structure of a modified LEN-model.- 3. The basic model with a beta—distribution of water quality depending on abatement intensity.- 4. Possible extensions.- References.- Comments by Günther knieps.- 9 Monitoring the Emission of Pollutants by Means of the Inspector Leadership Method.- 1. Monitoring point sources of pollution.- 2. Decision theoretical formulation of the problem.- 3. Comparison of the solutions of the simple’ simultaneous’ and ‘leadership’ games.- 4. The general inspector leadership game and the Neyman —Pearson lemma.- 5. Application.- 6. Concluding remarks.- References.- Comments by Till Requate.- 10 Illegal Pollution and Monitoring of Unknown Quality — A Signaling Game Approach —.- 1. Introduction.- 1: Equilibrium Scenarios with Pooling and Signaling Behavior.- 2. The game model.- 3. A gallery of equilibrium scenarios.- 3.1. Pooled shirking and illegal waste disposal: ‘polluter’s paradise scenario’.- 3.2. Exploratory accidents and illegal waste disposal due to unqualified control: ‘signaling scenarios’.- 3.3. Absence of illegal pollution due to efficient control: ‘controller’s paradise scenario’.- 3.4. Intermediate illegal pollution: ‘constrained polluter’s paradise scenario’.- 3.5. Equilibrium scenarios and the multiplicity of equilibria.- 2: Perfect Equilibria and (Unique) Solutions via Equilibrium Selection.- 4. Uniformly perfect pure strategy equilibria.- 5. Comparison of signaling and pooling equilibria.- 5.1. Cell and truncation consistency.- 5.2. Payoff dominance.- 5.3. Risk dominance.- 5.4. Solutions in the range (4.14).- 5.5. The solution in the range (4.15).- 5.6. Discussion of the solution.- 6. Conclusions.- References.- Comments by Aart de Zeeuw.

O autorze

The use of environmental resources involves strategic behavior to provoke or settle conflicts. This book contains ten papers: six investigate conceptual issues of international environmental conflicts and cooperation while four address conflicts in monitoring and enforcing environmental controls. Advanced game-theoretic concepts are used.