Economic analysis has long been employed for the study of tort liability. This paper revisits the main contributions to the subject emphasizing the inherent impossibility for tort liability to set perfectly efficient first-best incentives to take precaution for all parties to an accident and the...

In ancient societies, rules of communal responsibility permitted the imposition of retaliatory sanctions on a wrongdoer’s clan. These rules followed the collective ownership structure of early communities. Over time, notions of personal responsibility emerged, terminating the transfer of...

Trade opportunities are generally seen as valuable instruments to improve the allocation of resources in society. However, when the traded rights are secured through unproductive rent-seeking contests, the tradeability of the rents may provide stronger incentives to invest in rent-seeking...

This paper studies markets plagued with asymmetric information on the quality of traded goods. In Akerlof's setting, sellers are better informed than buyers. In contrast, we examine cases where buyers are better informed than sellers. This creates an inverse adverse selection problem: The market...

Not available

Commons and Anticommons problems are the consequence of symmetric structural departures from a unified conception of property. In this paper, we endeavor to provide a dual model of property, where commons and anticommons problems are the consequence of a lack of conformity between use and...

Commons and Anticommons problems are the consequence of symmetric structural departures from a unified conception of property. In this paper, we endeavor to provide a dual model of property, where commons and anticommons problems are the consequence of a lack of conformity between use and...

This paper develops a general model of anticommons fragmentation in property. To this end, we differentiate between different forms of property fragmentation. With the use of several functionally related examples, we consider the equilibria obtained under different scenarios. The various...

Comparative causation is the only tort regime that allows parties to share an accident loss in equilibrium. The sharing of an accident loss between a nonnegligent injurer and his nonnegligent victim spreads activity level and R&D incentives between prospective tortfeasors and their victims. This...