IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_11744.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Present Bias in Politics and Self-Committing Treaties

Author

Listed:
  • Bård Harstad
  • Anke Kessler
  • Anke S. Kessler

Abstract

We study how international environmental agreements can take advantage of domestic time-inconsistency problems. Policymakers often prefer future policies to be sustainable, but are tempted to invest less when being in office. We find the equilibrium number of signatory countries to be higher than when preferences are time consistent, especially when the political environment is unstable and polarized and the international spillovers are limited. This model also explains participation in treaties whose mandates do not vary with the coalition size and why the coalition will not unravel if, for example, the US exits the Paris Agreement.

Suggested Citation

  • Bård Harstad & Anke Kessler & Anke S. Kessler, 2025. "Present Bias in Politics and Self-Committing Treaties," CESifo Working Paper Series 11744, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11744
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp11744.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eric Neumayer, 2002. "Do Democracies Exhibit Stronger International Environmental Commitment? A Cross-country Analysis," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 39(2), pages 139-164, March.
    2. Torsten Persson & Lars E. O. Svensson, 1989. "Why a Stubborn Conservative would Run a Deficit: Policy with Time-Inconsistent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(2), pages 325-345.
    3. Aldy,Joseph E. & Stavins,Robert N. (ed.), 2009. "Post-Kyoto International Climate Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521137850, July.
    4. Mailath, George J. & Samuelson, Larry, 2006. "Repeated Games and Reputations: Long-Run Relationships," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195300796, Decembrie.
    5. Christian Gollier & Richard Zeckhauser, 2005. "Aggregation of Heterogeneous Time Preferences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(4), pages 878-896, August.
    6. Aldy,Joseph E. & Stavins,Robert N. (ed.), 2009. "Post-Kyoto International Climate Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521138000, July.
    7. Aldy,Joseph E. & Stavins,Robert N. (ed.), 2009. "Post-Kyoto International Climate Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521129527, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anke Kessler and Bard Harstad, 2024. "Present Bias in Politics and Self–Committing Treaties," Discussion Papers dp24-08, Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University.
    2. Robert N. Stavins, 2011. "The Problem of the Commons: Still Unsettled after 100 Years," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 81-108, February.
    3. Meléndez-Jiménez, Miguel A. & Polanski, Arnold, 2020. "Dirty neighbors — Pollution in an interlinked world," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    4. Bård Harstad, 2016. "The Dynamics of Climate Agreements," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 719-752.
    5. Robert N. Stavins, 2017. "The Evolution Of Environmental Economics: A View From The Inside," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 62(02), pages 251-274, June.
    6. Marco Battaglini & Bård Harstad, 2016. "Participation and Duration of Environmental Agreements," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(1), pages 160-204.
    7. Starkov, Egor, 2023. "Only time will tell: Credible dynamic signaling," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    8. Gonzalez, Francisco M. & Lazkano, Itziar & Smulders, Sjak A., 2018. "Intergenerational altruism with future bias," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 436-454.
    9. Daron Acemoglu & Matthew O. Jackson, 2017. "Social Norms and the Enforcement of Laws," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 245-295.
    10. Ernesto Dal Bó & Pedro Dal Bó & Rafael Di Tella, 2007. "Reputation When Threats and Transfers Are Available," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(3), pages 577-598, September.
    11. Carmona, Guilherme & Carvalho, Luís, 2016. "Repeated two-person zero-sum games with unequal discounting and private monitoring," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 131-138.
    12. Borge, Lars-Erik, 2005. "Strong politicians, small deficits: evidence from Norwegian local governments," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 325-344, June.
    13. Bellelli, Francesco S. & Scarpa, Riccardo & Aftab, Ashar, 2023. "An empirical analysis of participation in international environmental agreements," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    14. Daniel Fiorino, 2011. "Explaining national environmental performance: approaches, evidence, and implications," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 44(4), pages 367-389, November.
    15. Salahodjaev, Raufhon & Yuldashev, Oybek, 2016. "Intelligence and greenhouse gas emissions: Introducing Intelligence Kuznets curve," MPRA Paper 68997, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Frankel, Jeffrey A. & Bosetti, Valentina, 2011. "Politically Feasible Emission Target Formulas to Attain 460 ppm CO[subscript 2] Concentrations," Working Paper Series rwp11-016, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    17. Maria Arvaniti & Chandra K. Krishnamurthy & Anne-Sophie Crépin, 2019. "Time-consistent resource management with regime shifts," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 19/329, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    18. Lagunoff, Roger, 2006. "Credible communication in dynastic government," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 59-86, January.
    19. Gersbach, Hans & Jackson, Matthew O. & Muller, Philippe & Tejada, Oriol, 2023. "Electoral competition with costly policy changes: A dynamic perspective," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    20. Gilles Saint‐Paul & Davide Ticchi & Andrea Vindigni, 2016. "A Theory of Political Entrenchment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(593), pages 1238-1263, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    international treaties; time inconsistency; self-commitment; environmental policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy
    • H87 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - International Fiscal Issues; International Public Goods
    • F53 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - International Agreements and Observance; International Organizations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11744. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.