Despite the advances in New Institutional Economics about the economic consequences of institutions and legal rules, up to now we have only limited knowledge about the mechanisms of the evolution of law. By combining the main ideas of Evolutionary Economics and New Institutional Economics this...

This paper estimates the funding advantage afforded by the joint liability scheme to German Landesbanken. The advantage is estimated by computing the difference between Moody's baseline credit assessment (BCA), representing the stand-alone rating, and the adjusted BCA incorporating group support...

This paper assesses the widely held belief that damages for pain and suffering are random or arbitrary. We empirically analyze the differential impact of a plaintiff's personal characteristics, pain-specific circumstances and a lawsuit's procedural features on such payments. Relying on a dataset...

We use consumer panel data to calculate the damage suffered by German consumers due to a detergent cartel that was active between 2002 and 2005 in eight European countries. Applying before-and-after and difference-in-differences estimations we find average overcharges between 6.7 and 6.9 percent...

Since 2007, all insurance intermediaries face negligence liability that is supposed to reallocate risks and set economic incentives. Nonetheless, further measures are taken to improve consumer protection. So, the question arises does the liability rule influence the agents behavior, or not, and...