Abstract: International cooperation on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions needs to be negotiated. The success of such negotiations depends on how they are designed. The first part of this talk argues that actual climate negotiations largely ignore that climate change is, fundamentally, a cooperation problem. Previous work suggests that shifting the negotiation focus to a uniform minimum carbon price would lead to more ambitious cooperation. The second part presents laboratory evidence that supports the conjecture.
Bio: Axel Ockenfels is a Professor of Economics at the University of Cologne and Speaker of the University’s Excellence Center for Social and Economic Behavior. Ockenfels studies human behavior and combines tools from game theory and behavioral research to design markets and competitive strategies. This approach has many useful applications, and it benefits from collaborations with governments and market platforms. Ockenfels serves in the Advisory Board at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, as an editor of Management Science, and is a member of several Academies of Science. He studied Economics at the University of Bonn and received his PhD at the University of Magdeburg in 1998.
