A Mechanism for Internalizing Externalities

全球环境变化是经济学家可以称之为外部性的一个主要例子。每个国家都可能产生影响所有其他国家福利的排放物。在选择适当的排放水平时，每个国家都会考虑到它对自己造成的成本，但可能会忽视或尽量减少它对其他国家造成的成本的重要性。即使受影响的各方充分了解潜在成本的大小，如果监管机构无法获得此类成本信息，也可能难以设计适当的监管机制。这个项目关注的是补偿机制的理论和实验研究，这是一种新的外部性内部化机制。该项目研究了这些机制的几个理论扩展，特别关注不同的信息结构。这些机制也在实验室中进行了测试，以了解它们在实践中的作用。

Global environmental change is a prime example of what economists can al externality. Each country may produce emissions which affect the welfare of all other countries. In choosing an appropriate level of emissions, each country will take into account the costs it imposes on itself, but may neglect or minimize the importance of the costs it imposes on others. Even if the magnitude of the potential cost are well-understood to the afflicted parties, it may be difficult to design an appropriate regulatory mechanism, if the regulator doesn't have access to such cost information. This project is concerned with the theoretical and experimental investigation of compensation mechanisms, a new class of mechanisms for internalizing externalities. The project investigates several theoretical extensions of these mechanisms, paying particular attention to different information structures. These mechanisms are also tested in the laboratory to see how they work in practice.