Dear Colleagues,

We are currently experiencing several multi-layered global crises that call for enhanced cooperation. Severe multidimensional, complex phenomena such as the COVID-19 outbreak and global climate change have dramatically changed our lives and our relationship with our work, nature and interactions, affecting entire populations. Adverse events risk causing enormous ecological, societal, economic and governance impacts, endangering mankind.

Game theory offers an array of rigorous analytical tools to settle noteworthy issues and possibly offset the anthropogenic impact on society, environmental quality and sustainable use of natural resources, proposing resilience policy and solutions. There is a sizeable body of game theory applications for monopolistic and oligopolistic interaction patterns within the framework of the economics of natural resources. A growing body of theoretical and empirical literature offers strategic perspectives on environmental and development economics and sustainable development.

The relevance of game theory for the analysis and optimization of the interaction between sizeable groups of states arises, especially within international environmental agreements such as the Paris Agreement or the European Green Deal. Against this backdrop, the theory of global common-pool resources governance plays a central role in the assessment and optimization of international and global climate action. This is even more pertinent for the exploration of fisheries in the mesopelagic zone, which drive the biological carbon print on the one hand side and also act as a potential source for food for the growing number of people worldwide.

This Special Issue aims to foster urgent research questions related to sustainability, environmental, resource and development economics, including—but not limited to—game theoretic analysis of:

• Management of common-pool resources;
• Cooperative and non-cooperative games;
• Social and environmental economics and policy;
• International environmental agreements;
• International development agenda, SDGs and grand challenges;
• Resource governance—including energy, food, agriculture, aquaculture, water and land management;
• Application of game multi-species games;
• Faustmann formula;
• Gordon–Shaefer model;
• Strategic interaction in management of fisheries;
• Game theory in management of deep sea fisheries;
• Applications of game theory in studies on climate change engineering;
• Climate change and climate justice modelling;
• Public and environmental health;
• Decisions on the determination of the magnitude of exploration of natural resources;
• Management of conflicts related to the distribution of water resources;
• Common pool resources and public goods governance;
• Adaptation, mitigation and resilience action to tackle vulnerability and multifaceted injustice;
• Nash and Stackelberg open-loop and closed-loop equilibria in distributional bargaining games;
• Nash–Cournot equilibria concepts and their applications;
• The role of environmental discounting in distributional games related to climate economics;
• Berntrand duopoly equilibria in environmental studies;
• Cournot equilibria;
• Competition and monopole behavior in resource and environmental economics;
• Innovation of productive processes for sustainable development;
• Law and economics, policy, and regulation analysis;
• Strategic competition on economic rent;
• Interaction in international trade with nonrenewable natural resources;
• Application of game theory in modeling issues related to international development cooperation
• Strategic interaction patterns in geoengineering, especially solar radiation management
• Game theory perspectives on non-binding environmental agreements, such as nationally determined pledges within the Paris Agreement.

We invite authors to submit their full-size research articles, short conceptual review papers and notes on this topic to this Special Issue of Games. Related subjects, approaches and methodologies from any discipline—applied either empirically or theoretically—are welcome. Interdisciplinary works and contributions pertaining to diverse schools and streams of research are strongly encouraged. 

Dr. Elkhan Richard Sadik-Zada
Prof. Dr. Andrea Gatto
Prof. Dr. Luigi Aldieri
Dr. Giovanna Bimonte
Prof. Dr. Luigi Senatore
Prof. Dr. Concetto Paolo Vinci
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Games is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• game theory
• sustainable development
• sustainability
• energy economics
• development economics
• resource governance
• social economics
• environmental economics
• energy policy
• food policy
• cooperative and non-cooperative games
• strategy