International Environmental Agreements under Endogenous Uncertainty

This paper explores the implications of the possibility of a shift in environmental damages on the participation in environmental treaties. Using a two‐period model where the probability of a regime shift increases in the first‐period pollution stock, we examine the issue of coalition formation under both fixed and dynamic membership. Our analysis suggests that endogenous uncertainty may increase participation. We find that full cooperation may be sustained, but only in the presence of endogenous uncertainty. Interestingly, when the shift in the environmental damage is large enough, the model provides a way to solve the “puzzle of small coalitions” found in the literature related to international environmental agreements. We also find that in period 1 (period 2) endogenous uncertainty leads to a lower (higher) pollution stock under dynamic membership as compared to the fixed membership case.     

Investigation of the Effects of Disclosure Statements in Rental Car Advertisements

State attorneys general recently proposed mandatory disclosures for rental car advertising. This study investigates the effects of alternate disclosure statements on consumers' beliefs. The results suggest that a shorter disclosure statement may be as effective as the one proposed.     

Ex Ante Skewness and Expected Stock Returns

We use option prices to estimate ex ante higher moments of the underlying individual securities’ risk‐neutral returns distribution. We find that individual securities’ risk‐neutral volatility, skewness, and kurtosis are strongly related to future returns. Specifically, we find a negative (positive) relation between ex ante volatility (kurtosis) and subsequent returns in the cross‐section, and more ex ante negatively (positively) skewed returns yield subsequent higher (lower) returns. We analyze the extent to which these returns relations represent compensation for risk and find evidence that, even after controlling for differences in co‐moments, individual securities’ skewness matters.