Application of game theory to global environmental problems

This dissertation consists of three essays that deal with important global environmental problems, using a game theoretical framework.; The first essay deals with tropical deforestation as a global environmental issue and studies the possibility of an agreement between developing countries (or the South) and developed countries (or the North ) to reduce the deforestation rate using a subsidy program. For this purpose, we study two scenarios: the first one is a laisser-faire policy, where the South solves an optimal control problem over a finite horizon; and the second is a Stackelberg game, where the North offers subsidies to the I in order to reduce the deforestation rate. The two scenarios are then analyzed and compared in terms of strategies, outcomes and forest conservation. In contrast to previous studies, our final results show that the subsidy program cannot be unconditionally implemented, in the sense that some conditions have to be satisfied to guarantee the South's participation and in some cases the North's implication in this program.; The second essay is also concerned with tropical deforestation in developing countries. The objective of this essay is to determine incentive strategies for the South, conditioning the North's transfers directly on the South's actions regarding forest exploitation. These strategies can be used by the North to indirectly force the South to choose an optimal deforestation policy which is sustainable in the long run.; Finally, in the last essay, we investigate the possibility of reconciling two different approaches regarding the design of an International Environmental Agreement. We first study the problem from the cooperative games perspective, on which the first approach is based, by analyzing three definitions of the characteristic function. Then, we address the issue of free-riding and stability of coalitions as defined by the second approach. Our results show that it is not feasible to reconcile the two approaches, which differs from Tulkens's 1998 conjecture.