Information manipulation and climate agreements

It appears that news media and some pro-environmental organizations have the tendency to accentuate or even exaggerate the damage caused by climate change. This article provides a rationale for this tendency by using a modified International Environmental Agreement (IEA) model with asymmetric inform...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hong, Fuhai, Zhao, Xiaojian
Other Authors: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/79490
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/25015
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
Description
Summary:It appears that news media and some pro-environmental organizations have the tendency to accentuate or even exaggerate the damage caused by climate change. This article provides a rationale for this tendency by using a modified International Environmental Agreement (IEA) model with asymmetric information. We find that the information manipulation has an instrumental value, as it ex post induces more countries to participate in an IEA, which will eventually enhance global welfare. From the ex ante perspective, however, the impact that manipulating information has on the level of participation in an IEA and on welfare is ambiguous.