Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/177618 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
Economics Working Paper No. 2018-05
Publisher: 
Kiel University, Department of Economics, Kiel
Abstract: 
Avoiding a catastrophic climate change event is a global public good characterized by several dimensions, notably heterogeneity between the parties involved. It is often argued that such heterogeneity between countries is a major obstacle to cooperative climate policy. We challenge this belief by experimentally simulating two important heterogeneities, in wealth and loss, when dangerous climate change occurs. We find that under loss heterogeneity the success rate in achieving sufficient mitigation to prevent catastrophic climate change is higher than with homogeneous parties. We also observe that neither endowment heterogeneity nor the combination of endowment and loss heterogeneities lead to significantly different success rates than with homogeneous parties. Our findings suggest that heterogeneities may facilitate rather than hinder successful international climate policy negotiations.
Subjects: 
global public good
climate change negotiation
collective-risk social dilemma
endowment heterogeneity
loss heterogeneity
focal point
JEL: 
C92
D74
H41
Q54
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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