Policymakers' horizon and the sustainability of international cooperation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Conconi, Paola; Sahuguet, Nicolas
• 署名单位: Universite Libre de Bruxelles; Universite de Montreal; HEC Montreal
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2008.11.006
• 发表日期: 2009
• 页码: 549-558
• 关键词: Self-enforcing cooperation; Re-election incentives; term limits

摘要

This paper examines the impact of policymakers' horizon on the sustainability of international cooperation. We describe a prisoners' dilemma game between two infinitely-lived countries run by policymakers. We show that re-election incentives can act as a discipline device, making it easier to sustain cooperation between policymakers with finite but potentially renewable mandates than between infinitely-lived policymakers. We also show that, when voting suffers from a recency bias, policymakers may have incentives to collude to get re-elected and term limits may help international cooperation. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.