IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ris/actuec/0195.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Climate games: Who’s on first? What’s on second?

Author

Listed:
  • Insley, Margaret

    (Department of Economics, University of Waterloo)

  • A. Forsyth, Peter

    (Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo)

Abstract

We study four different climate change games and compare with the outcome of choices by a Social Planner. In a dynamic setting, two players choose levels of carbon emissions. Rising atmospheric carbon stocks increase average global temperature which damages player utilities. Temperature is modelled as a stochastic differential equation. We contrast the results of a Stackelberg game with a game in which both players act as leaders (a Leader-Leader, or Trumpian game). We also examine an Interleaved game where there is a significant time interval between player decisions. Finally we examine a game where a Nash equilibrium is chosen if it exists, and otherwise a Stackelberg game is played. One or both players may be better off in these alternative games compared to the Stackelberg game, depending on state variables. We conclude that it is important to consider alternate game structures in examining strategic interactions in pollution games. We also demonstrate that the Stackelberg game is the limit of the Interleaved game as the time between decisions goes to zero.

Suggested Citation

  • Insley, Margaret & A. Forsyth, Peter, 2019. "Climate games: Who’s on first? What’s on second?," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 95(2-3), pages 287-322, Juin-Sept.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:actuec:0195
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1076261ar
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Derek Lemoine & Christian Traeger, 2014. "Watch Your Step: Optimal Policy in a Tipping Climate," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 137-166, February.
    2. Robert S. Pindyck, 2013. "Climate Change Policy: What Do the Models Tell Us?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(3), pages 860-872, September.
    3. Dockner Engelbert J. & Van Long Ngo, 1993. "International Pollution Control: Cooperative versus Noncooperative Strategies," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 13-29, July.
    4. Nordhaus, William, 2013. "Integrated Economic and Climate Modeling," Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, in: Peter B. Dixon & Dale Jorgenson (ed.), Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 1069-1131, Elsevier.
    5. Christian Traeger, 2014. "A 4-Stated DICE: Quantitatively Addressing Uncertainty Effects in Climate Change," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 59(1), pages 1-37, September.
    6. Nkuiya, Bruno, 2015. "Transboundary pollution game with potential shift in damages," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 1-14.
    7. Margaret Insley & Tracy Snoddon & Peter A. Forsyth, 2018. "Strategic interactions and uncertainty in decisions to curb greenhouse gas emissions," Working Papers 1805, University of Waterloo, Department of Economics, revised 06 Jan 2018.
    8. Zagonari, Fabio, 1998. "International Pollution Problems: Unilateral Initiatives by Environmental Groups in One Country," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 46-69, July.
    9. List, John A. & Mason, Charles F., 2001. "Optimal Institutional Arrangements for Transboundary Pollutants in a Second-Best World: Evidence from a Differential Game with Asymmetric Players," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 277-296, November.
    10. Frank Ackerman & Elizabeth Stanton & Ramón Bueno, 2013. "Epstein–Zin Utility in DICE: Is Risk Aversion Irrelevant to Climate Policy?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 56(1), pages 73-84, September.
    11. Wirl, Franz, 2006. "Consequences of irreversibilities on optimal intertemporal CO2 emission policies under uncertainty," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 105-123, May.
    12. Dockner,Engelbert J. & Jorgensen,Steffen & Long,Ngo Van & Sorger,Gerhard, 2000. "Differential Games in Economics and Management Science," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521637329.
    13. Anastasios Xepapadeas, 1998. "Policy Adoption Rules and Global Warming," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 11(3), pages 635-646, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Margaret Insley & Tracy Snoddon & Peter A. Forsyth, 2018. "Strategic interactions and uncertainty in decisions to curb greenhouse gas emissions," Working Papers 1805, University of Waterloo, Department of Economics, revised 06 Jan 2018.

    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. Margaret Insley & Tracy Snoddon & Peter A. Forsyth, 2018. "Strategic interactions and uncertainty in decisions to curb greenhouse gas emissions," Working Papers 1805, University of Waterloo, Department of Economics, revised 06 Jan 2018.
    2. Santiago J. Rubio, 2002. "On The Coincidence Of The Feedback Nash And Stackelberg Equilibria In Economic Applications Of Differential Games," Working Papers. Serie AD 2002-11, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    3. J. Farmer & Cameron Hepburn & Penny Mealy & Alexander Teytelboym, 2015. "A Third Wave in the Economics of Climate Change," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 62(2), pages 329-357, October.
    4. van den Bergh, J.C.J.M. & Botzen, W.J.W., 2015. "Monetary valuation of the social cost of CO2 emissions: A critical survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 33-46.
    5. Dominika Czyz & Karolina Safarzynska, 2023. "Catastrophic Damages and the Optimal Carbon Tax Under Loss Aversion," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 85(2), pages 303-340, June.
    6. Javier Frutos & Guiomar Martín-Herrán, 2018. "Selection of a Markov Perfect Nash Equilibrium in a Class of Differential Games," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 620-636, September.
    7. Calvo, Emilio & Rubio, Santiago J., 2013. "Dynamic Models of International Environmental Agreements: A Differential Game Approach," International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics, now publishers, vol. 6(4), pages 289-339, April.
    8. Chen Ling & Michael Caputo, 2012. "The Envelope Theorem for Locally Differentiable Nash Equilibria of Discounted and Autonomous Infinite Horizon Differential Games," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 2(3), pages 313-334, September.
    9. Riccardo Rebonato & Riccardo Ronzani & Lionel Melin, 2023. "Robust management of climate risk damages," Risk Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 25(3), pages 1-43, September.
    10. Luisito Bertinelli & Amer Tabakovic & Luca Marchiori & Benteng Zou, 2015. "Transboundary Pollution Abatement: The Impact of Unilateral Commitment in Differential Games," DEM Discussion Paper Series 15-02, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    11. Charles F. Mason, 2021. "Transboundary Externalities and Reciprocal Taxes: A Differential Game Approach," Strategic Behavior and the Environment, now publishers, vol. 9(1-2), pages 27-67, July.
    12. Charles F. Mason & Victoria I. Umanskaya & Edward B. Barbier, 2018. "Trade, Transboundary Pollution, and Foreign Lobbying," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 70(1), pages 223-248, May.
    13. Jeongmeen Suh & Myeonghwan Cho, 2017. "Roles of Flexible Mechanisms in International Environmental Agreements," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 33, pages 239-265.
    14. Mariia Belaia & Michael Funke & Nicole Glanemann, 2017. "Global Warming and a Potential Tipping Point in the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation: The Role of Risk Aversion," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 67(1), pages 93-125, May.
    15. Nicolas Taconet & Céline Guivarch & Antonin Pottier, 2021. "Social Cost of Carbon Under Stochastic Tipping Points," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 78(4), pages 709-737, April.
    16. Hambel, Christoph & Kraft, Holger & Schwartz, Eduardo, 2021. "Optimal carbon abatement in a stochastic equilibrium model with climate change," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    17. Shuhua Chang & Suresh P. Sethi & Xinyu Wang, 2018. "Optimal Abatement and Emission Permit Trading Policies in a Dynamic Transboundary Pollution Game," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 542-572, September.
    18. Yongyang Cai & Thomas S. Lontzek, 2019. "The Social Cost of Carbon with Economic and Climate Risks," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(6), pages 2684-2734.
    19. Delavane B. Diaz, 2015. "Integrated Assessment of Climate Catastrophes with Endogenous Uncertainty: Does the Risk of Ice Sheet Collapse Justify Precautionary Mitigation?," Working Papers 2015.64, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    20. G. Zaccour, 2003. "Computation of Characteristic Function Values for Linear-State Differential Games," Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications, Springer, vol. 117(1), pages 183-194, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • Q52 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Pollution Control Adoption and Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    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:ris:actuec:0195. 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: Benoit Dostie (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/scseeea.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.