Coase Seetings Negishi: Property Rights, Social Vights, and Distributional Affairs in Climate Economic Economics (Саймон Ф. Лэнг, Мэтью Д. Гордон, Мэтью Джей. Котчен

We develop a property-rights based approach for defining welfare weights in economic models of climate change. Whether there is a "right to pollute" or a "right to no pollution" is increasingly contested in legislatures, courts, and international climate negotiations. We show how these notions of property rights can provide the basis for "Coasean welfare weights" that are applicable in multilateral public goods settings. Distributional questions are addressed through positive analysis, conditional on property rights, rather than normative views about redistribution. The implied transfers are consistent with a bargained solution over the net benefits of addressing climate change and reflect the value of property rights over emissions. The approach defines efficient allocations that generate Pareto improvements, in contrast to commonly used Negishi weights. We implement the approach in a global integrated assessment model to quantify what countries have at stake in ongoing political and legal debates about emissions-related property rights. Acknowledgements and Disclosures We are grateful for thoughtful comments on this research from Eli Fenichel, Kenneth Gillingham, Paul Kelleher, Marc Fleurbaey, Paolo Piacquadio, Moritz Drupp, Sarah Spycher, Frikk Nesje, Morgane Gonon, and participants at the Swiss Workshop on Environmental, Resource and Energy Economics, the CEPR Virtual Seminar on Climate Economics, SURED, the CER-CEPE ETH Brown Bag Seminar, and the World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists. We acknowledge use of ChatGPT, Claude, and Refine.ink to review and edit text. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. We are grateful for thoughtful comments on this research from Eli Fenichel, Kenneth Gillingham, Paul Kelleher, Marc Fleurbaey, Paolo Piacquadio, Moritz Drupp, Sarah Spycher, Frikk Nesje, Morgane Gonon, and participants at the Swiss Workshop on Environmental, Resource and Energy Economics, the CEPR Virtual Seminar on Climate Economics, SURED, the CER-CEPE ETH Brown Bag Seminar, and the World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists. We acknowledge use of ChatGPT, Claude, and Refine.ink to review and edit text. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Citation and Citation Data Copy Citation Simon F. Lang, Matthew D. Gordon, and Matthew J. Kotchen, "Coase Meets Negishi: Property Rights, Welfare Weights, and Distributional Consequences in Climate Economics," NBER Working Paper 35971 (2026), https://doi.org/10.3386/w35971. Copy to Clipboard Download Citation MARC RIS BibTeΧ Download Citation Data In addition to working papers, the NBER disseminates affiliates’ latest findings through a range of free periodicals—the NBER Reporter, the NBER Digest, the Bulletin on Health, the Bulletin on the Economics of Alzheimer's, and the Bulletin on Entrepreneurship—as well as research spotlights, lectures, and panel videos. Presenters: Melissa Dell & Ashesh Rambachan Presenter: Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham