Das Kooperationsverhalten der Staaten bei der Begrenzung globaler Umweltrisiken: Zur Integration stochastischer und strategischer Unsicherheitsaspekte

To limit global environmental risks, countries must cooperate. However, the prisoners' dilemma-type of the problem suggests that international environmental agreements are difficult to obtain and to maintain. In this paper, the role of countries' risk preferences for the prisoners' dilemma-incentive- structure is analysed. It is shown that parametric and strategic uncertainty might interact favourably with respect to the countries' propensity to cooperate. If countries are risk averse cooperation might arise, even if expected pay-offs take the form of a static prisoners' dilemma. However, a prerequisite for this result is that risk aversion exceeds a certain threshold.