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http://hdl.handle.net/2451/14277
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| Title: | Notes on Implementing Sustainable Development |
| Authors: | Radner, Roy |
| Issue Date: | Aug-1999 |
| Publisher: | Stern School of Business, New York University |
| Series/Report no.: | IS-99-02 |
| Abstract: | "Sustainable Development" refers to a set of issues relating
to two general questions: (1) Are the presently prevailing technologies
and lifestyles of economic development so destructive of the earth's
natural resources and environment that the current pace of development
cannot be maintained? (2) If so, what combinations of technology,
life-style, and rate of growth are sustainable in the 'long-run,' and
what mechanisms of cooperation and incentives can be devised to
implement them? After providing some introductory background material
for newcomers to the subject, and concluding that the answer to the
first question is "yes." I sketch some challenges to economic
theory implied by the second question. In particular, I argue that, for
transnational issues like global warming, the 'standard' approaches of
mechanism design theory are inadequate in the absence of a world
government or equivalent institution for enforcing cooperative
agreements. On the other hand, the typical large multiplicity of
noncooperative equilibria of such global dynamic "games"
creates a role for analysts to discover (invent?) equilibria that are
superior to the status-quo equilibrium, if indeed the current situation
can reasonably be interpreted as a (dynamic) equilibrium. I explore this
idea in the context of an oversimplified model of the "Global
Warming Game." |
| URI: | http://hdl.handle.net/2451/14277 |
| Appears in Collections: | IOMS: Information Systems Working Papers
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