International Climate Policy and Fairness Preferences: An Experimental Study

Given the relevance of fairness preferences for global environmental problems the project had two main objectives. Firstly, it was tested whether the behaviour of subjects in free-rider experiments and simple sequential games is consistent with fairness preferences according to the model of Fehr/Schmidt (1999). The theoretical implications of the model, the central assumption of the stability of preferences as well as selected comparative static effects was investigated in this study. Secondly, the structure of fairness preferences of decision makers in international climate policy was analysed with the help of laboratory experiments. Therefore, the project allowed a comprehensive test of the Fehr/Schmidt approach and investigated the importance of fairness preferences in international climate policy.

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