Work Package 4

WP4 applies laboratory experimental methods to analyze the relationship between non-state and individual actors. They refer to climate protection activities of non-state actors by specifically analyzing the relevance of individual support for some non-state actors in monitoring voluntary activities by other non-state actors. The focus lies on the potential support individuals can provide to non-state actors enabling them to monitor voluntary measures by other non-state actors. Special emphasis is therefore put on nested or overlapping activities of individuals and different non-state actors. Therefore, this work package examines (a) the individual preferences for the formation of non-governmental institutions to monitor climatic protection actions. And it (b) analyzes how (costly) institutional frameworks to monitor and verify voluntary climate protection activities can ensure tractability and the contribution to NDCs. For this purpose, laboratory experimental methods are used that allow the variation of specific exogenous parameters under controlled conditions to analyze causal relations. The experiments are conducted with about 300 students in the laboratory of the University of Mannheim (mLab Mannheim). The experimental data are analyzed by descriptive statistics and econometric methods.