Global Challenges: An Approach to Environmental, Political, and Economic Problems

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It takes the logic of economic theory (primarily economic game theory) and applies it to problems that either are affecting, or potentially will affect, everyone on this planet. These "Global Challanges" and the conditions necessary for their solution are then analyzed using the logic inherent to economic game theory. An excellent book that can be read by all people regardless of their knowledge of economics, as everything is explained with the assumption that the reader has never been exposed to the concepts. Helpful even to those who do have an understanding of economics.

Sandler's book is very appealing in that he does not suggest that the panacea for all the world's collective action problems is a supranational government structure. In fact, he recognizes that "Nationalism is still alive" (Sandler, xiv) and therefore supranational solutions to these problems are unlikely. He searches for those conditions under which nations may act unilaterally (if their stake is large enough) or in a loose confederation to solve these "global challenges," rather than calling for an improbable and impractical supranational solution. Furthermore, Sandler's argument is appealing because he is able to apply it to broad variety of international problems-from environment to disease and security issues. In each case, he applies the logic of collective action to suggest the conditions under which progress might be made toward a solution. Most interestingly, Sandler suggests that there are different games at work in many of these collective action problems, each with unique equilibria.