Class Action

This essay on the class action will be a chapter in the Procedural Law and Economics volume forthcoming from Edward Elgar. It reviews the law-and-economics literature on the class action, current as of 2008 (when I wrote the chapter). It discusses the benefits of large claim and small claim class actions and reviews the costs of class litigation, including agency costs, adverse selection and opt out, and frivolous and weak class action filings. The chapter also briefly discusses settlement class actions. It concludes with a review of some reform proposals