Coalition Formation and Environmental Policies in International Oligopoly Markets

Abstract

This paper analyzes the problem of international environmental cooperation as a coalition formation game. For this purpose, we develop a simple model with three countries of unequal size. Strate- gic interactions between those countries come from the imperfect competition among producers in global markets and from the transboundary pollution generated by the ?rms. To capture e¢ ciency gains from coordinating policies, countries can join a coalition and sign an international environmental agreement. The equilibrium coalition structure then depends on the country-size asymmetry and on the marginal environmental damage. Interestingly, we show that the grand coalition is less likely to emerge as an equi- librium outcome once two countries form a subcoalition. Furthermore, the further enlargement of the initial subcoalition can be blocked either by the outsider or by the insiders.

JEL codes

Reference

Michel Cavagnac, and Guillaume Cheikbossian, “Coalition Formation and Environmental Policies in International Oligopoly Markets”, TSE Working Paper, n. 12-364, April 2012.