The Quest for Hegemony Among Countries and Global Pollution

This paper builds on the assumption that countries behave in such a way as to improve, via their economic strength, the probability that they will attain the hegemonic position on the world stage. The quest for hegemony is modeled as a game, with countries being differentiated initially only by some endowment which yields a pollution free flow of income. A country’s level of pollution is assumed directly related to its economic strength, as measured by its level of production. Two types of countries are distinguished: richly endowed countries, for which the return on their endowment is greater than the return they can expect from winning the hegemony race, and poorly endowed countries, who can expect a greater return from winning the race than from their endowment. The paper analyzes the effect on global pollution of the distribution between the two types of countries and of various measures that change the relative or absolute lot of the poorly endowed.