An Approach to the stability of international environmental agreements: the absorbing sets solution

We study international environmental negotiations when agreements between countries can not be binding. A problem with this kind of negotiations is that countries have incentives for free-riding from such agreements. We develope a notion of equilibrium based on the assumption that countries can create and dissolve agreements in their seeking of a larger welfare. This approach leads to a larger degree of cooperation compared to models based on the internal-external stability approach.Financial support from Basque Country University project: 9/UPV 00035.321-13699/2001 and Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia project: BEC2000-0875 is gratefully acknowledged