Altruism, Artificiality, Experiments, Methodology, C91, C70, D63, D64,

This article reports experimental tests of two alternative explanations of how players use focal points to select equilibria in one-shot coordination games. Cognitive hierarchy theory explains coordination as the result of common beliefs about playersÕ pre-reflective inclinations towards the relevant strategies; the theory of team reasoning explains it as the result of the playersÕ using a non-standard form of reasoning. We report two experiments. One finds strong support for team reasoning; the other supports cognitive hierarchy theory. In the light of additional questionnaire evidence, we conclude that playersÕ reasoning is sensitive to the decision context.

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Significance Tropical South America has forest resources of global significance but exhibits a relatively high rate of deforestation. As agricultural expansion remains the most important cause of forest loss and degradation there, it is important to understand its main drivers. In this paper we address two important questions: How do the quality of governance and agricultural intensification combine to impact the spatial expansion of agriculture? Which aspects of governance are more likely to ensure that agricultural intensification allows sparing land for nature? By distinguishing between conventional and environmental dimensions of governance (which includes also the establishment of protected areas), we investigate which of these two aspects, by interacting with the process of agricultural intensification, is likely to promote land sparing.

Climate change scholars generally urge that CO 2 emissions need to be cut rapidly if we are to avoid dangerous risks of climate change. However, climate change mitigation policies are widely perceived to have regressive effects -that is, putting a higher financial burden as a proportion of household income on poor than on rich households. This is one of several major barriers to the adoption of effective mitigation policies. They would also have considerable social justice implications requiring significant welfare state responses. We assess the claim that climate change policies have regressive effects by comparing different types of mitigation policies. We will argue that many of these are indeed likely to have regressive distributional implications but that there are several policy options to counteract regressive effects.