Can a Focus on Breakthrough Technologies Improve the Performance of International Environmental Agreements?

This article was initiated during our participation in the "Environmental economics: policy instruments, technology development and international cooperation" project at the Centre for Advanced Study (CAS) at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in Oslo in 2005-6. We are grateful for many useful comments and suggestions from the participants. We are also grateful to Geir Asheim, Scott Barrett, Bard Harstad, Chuck Mason and participants of the NBER Summer Institute for comments on earlier versions of this paper. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.