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Mitigating the detrimental effects of climate change is a collective problem that requires global cooperation. However, achieving cooperation is difficult since benefits are probabilistic and obtained in the future. The so-called collective-risk game, devised to capture dangerous climate change, showed that catastrophic economic losses promote cooperation when individuals know the timing of a single climatic event. In reality, the impact and timing of climate change are not certain; moreover, recurrent events are possible. To study this question, Abou-Chakra et al. [Nat. Communs. (2018 )9:2566] devised a game where the risk of a collective loss can recur across multiple rounds. Their theoretical analysis predicts that ‘wait and see’ behavior is successful only if players know when they need to contribute to avoid danger and if contributions can eliminate the risks. In all other cases, ‘act quickly’ is expected to be more successful, especially under uncertainty and the possibility of repeated losses. We here intend to compare those theoretical predictions with experimental results obtained from an implementation of their game; specifically, we will consider two of the situations they analyzed, one in which there is a chance that the climatic catastrophe occurs at any round (every-round scenario), and one in which it can only take place in the last round (last-round scenario). For both situations, we will elicit participants’ expectations in three ways: personal normative beliefs, empirical expectations, and normative expectations and risk preference. In both cases, reaching a threshold contribution (a step-like risk curve) among all participants is required to obtain a substantial reduction in the risk of the catastrophe. Our results will be useful to ascertain the validity of the model to study scenarios to communicate uncertainty and also to draw lessons as to how to realize those in practice.

Does the COVID-19 outbreak increase i) the strength of cooperative social norms and ii) cooperative behavior to overcome collective-risk social dilemmas? In 2018, we conducted a 30-day online experiment involving 286 subjects to test whether social norms of cooperation change due to risk and whether these norms causally motivate individuals to cooperate (Wave 1) (Szekely et al. 2020, submitted). We will conduct a follow-up, Wave 2, experiment to test the effect a sudden variation in disease threat due to the recent Covid-19 outbreak on the strength of cooperative social norms and cooperative behavior.

Theoretical models of the Kuznets Curve have been purely analytical with little contribution towards an understanding of the timing of the process and the presence of additional mechanisms affecting its timing. This paper proposes an agent-based version of Acemoglu and Robinson's model of the Kuznets Curve. In extending their analytical framework we include heterogeneity of agents' income and a mating mechanism that together represent elements of social mobility. These two simple changes proved to be enough to shed light on the length and timing before high inequality implies regime change. Thus, this work may contribute to an effective empirical assessment of the Kuznets curve as it explicitly considers the time dimension of the process and the effects of considering social dynamics.