TY  - JOUR
AU  - Lange,Andreas
AU  - Löschel,Andreas
AU  - Vogt,Carsten
AU  - Ziegler,Andreas
TI  - On the Self-interested Use of Equity in International Climate Negotiations
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14930
PY  - 2009
Y2  - April 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14930
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14930.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Andreas Lange
University of Hamburg
Department of Economics
Von Melle Park 5
20146 Hamburg
Germany
Tel: +49-40-42838-4035
Fax: +49-40-42838-3243
E-Mail: andreas.lange@wiso.uni-hamburg.de

Andreas Löschel
Centre for European
Economic Research (ZEW)
P.O. Box 103443
D-68034 Mannheim
Germany
E-Mail: loeschel@zew.de

Carsten Vogt
University of Applied Sciences
Department of Economics and Management
Lennershofstrasse 140
44801 Bochum
Germany
E-Mail: carsten.vogt@hs-bochum.de

Andreas Ziegler
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich
Center of Economic Research
Zurichbergstrasse 18
8032 Zurich
Switzerland
E-Mail: andziegler@ethz.ch
AB  - We discuss self-interested uses of equity arguments in international climate negotiations. Using unique data from a world-wide survey of agents involved in international climate policy, we show that the perceived support of different equity rules by countries or groups of countries may be explained by their economic costs. Despite being self-interested, equity arguments may be perceived as being used for different reasons, for example, out of fairness considerations or in order to facilitate negotiations. Consistent with experimental and behavioral studies on fairness perceptions, we find that individuals are more likely to state reasons with positive attributes if they evaluate their own region or regions that support the individual’s personally preferred equity rule. Negotiators perceive the use of equity by regions as less influenced by pressure from interest groups.
ER  -